smoked apple & chestnut ravioli w cinnamon apple butter

Back in 2007, a few days after our wedding, Jonas and I visited Rockpool, back in it's original iteration when it was one of Sydney's finest, and ordered their extensive degustation menu with premium matching wines. It still stands as the most expensive meal of my entire life, and with the same money we could have bought an overseas airfare and possibly accommodation. Don’t ask, suffice to say it was expensive.

But the memory was also priceless, as it was our wedding gift to each other and many of the dishes we ate on that evening have remained with us.

One in particular was an apple and chestnut ravioli, a dish served to Jonas in his vegetarian days. It was a confusion of sweet and savoury apple and cinnamon and herbs. A clever combination that was executed perfectly.

This year, as one of my 2012 Food Challenges, I decided I needed to recreate recipes I had experienced at restaurants. This was one of them, but I decided to put my own twist on it by using smoked apples, that I hot smoked myself in my Nipper Kipper smoker.

While it was a somewhat complicated recipe (a lot of steps to go through), I feel really rewarded for my efforts.

It was a very elegant dish and would be a big hit at a swanky dinner party.

Unfortunately for me, every shop I visited was out of wonton wrappers so when I finely found some they were square rather than round. Please go with the round versions, they will be much prettier.

And be sure to top your dishes with fresh herbs. They really cut through the intensity of the rich glaze sauce.

I used butter and chicken stock, but you could easily make this a vegetarian version with veggie stock or a vegan version with olive oil instead of butter and go with non-egg-based pasta.

Any leftover ravioli filling can be set in the fridge and eaten as a vegetarian paté.

Smoked Apple & Chestnut Ravioli w Cinnamon Apple Butter

Anna’s very own recipe. Serves 4.

Ingredients:

Smoked apples
2 green apples
Smoker
Wood chips

Ravioli
32 round egg wonton wrappers (for 16 ravioli)
2 tablespoons chopped sage
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon smoked salt
½ white onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 teaspoon freshly milled black pepper
1½ smoked apple, chopped
100g chestnut purée
Butter for frying
Beaten egg, for sealing wonton wrappers

Butter Sauce
50g butter
1 teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ cup verjuice
Sprig of lemon thyme, picked over
½ smoked apple, chopped
½ cup chicken consommé
¼ cup boiling water
1 teaspoon sugar
Black pepper
Salt
Fresh sage leaves, small and picked over

Method:

For the smoked apples

1. I peeled mine but left the core in.

2. Then I sprinkled about a tablespoon of dampened apple wood dust over some aluminium foil, placed my rack above it, then placed the two apples in and shut the top.

3. With the mentholated spirits lit, I removed the apples after about 20 minutes. This was probably about 5-10 minutes of heating up and 5-10 minutes of pure smoking.

4. When I removed them, they were warm, still fairly white and the outside was mildly soft but the inside was still hard.

5. I didn’t want to cook them any more than this as the smoke flavour would become overwhelming and somewhat acrid, ruining the balance of the dish.

6. Core each apple and chop into cubes: 1½ apples will go into the ravioli and ½ an apple will go into the sauce.

For the sauce

1. In a pan, heat the butter, onion powder, ground cinnamon, black pepper and salt until butter starts to brown and bubble.

2. Add verjuice and lemon thyme and bring to the boil.

3. Add apple, sugar, chicken consommé and boiling water, then bring to the boil and reduce for 5 minutes.

4. The sauce is done when the apple is soft and the liquid has reduced to a dark brown glaze (about ½ cup).

5. Keep warm while you cook the ravioli.

For the ravioli

1. Using a little butter, sauté onion and garlic until soft. Set aside.

2. Heating a little extra butter, add the sage leaves and heat until almost crispy. Set aside.

3. Using the sage-scented butter, add the chopped apples, smoked salt and pepper and fry until the apple is browned and soft.

4. Put the chestnut purée, cooked apple, onion and sage into the food processor and blend into a purée.

5. Line a tray or plastic container with baking paper, for the ravioli.

6. Lay wonton wrappers out on flat surface and brush with beaten egg (egg wash).

7. Put small dollops of purée on half the wrappers, then top them with the remaining wrappers, being sure the gently press out any air pockets when sealing them.

8. Lay the finished ravioli on the baking tray, with paper baking between layers to prevent sticking. Refrigerate for 5 minutes (to firm) or until ready to cook.

9. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil, then simmer ravioli until it rises to the surface and the pasta is cooked through.

10. Drain onto paper towels then plate, drizzling with sauce and apples, sage and thyme leaves.

baked clarines w garlic

I’m back from the steaming hot cities of Shanghai and Singapore, and happy to be plugged into the chilly Sydney air.

As an Australian, you’d think I’d crave the warm arms of humid tropical locations, but the reality is I find them very hard to handle in business contexts. Dresses clinging to damp skin, feet squelching in high heels, wiping your brow and trying to keep your make up from melting off your face. Not fun, and it’s no doubt worse for men in their suit and ties.

Give me holidays instead: shorts, t-shirts and a glass of cold guava juice. That’s a totally different story. Then I can take it with grace.

The refreshing immersion into Sydney's cold weather calls for hearty fare and a wheel of melted cheese is just the trick. Sit back with a glass of white wine and some salted rosemary cracker shards to dip into the warm, gooey cheese puddle.

A perfect Saturday afternoon homecoming.

Baked Clarines w Garlic

Based on a recipe from Cheese Slices by Will Studd.

Ingredients:
1 x 500g Clarines
3 cloves garlic, sliced
Ground black pepper

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180’C.

2. Bring cheese to room temperature.

3. Use a knife to poke holes into the top of the cheese

4. Insert garlic cloves into the top of the cheese and bake in oven for 20 minutes.

5. Garnish with black pepper.

Note: original recipe recommends also adding thyme sprigs and ½ cup Pinot Noir before baking. Sounds amazing too!

smoked trout & potato salad w horseradish-crème fraîche dressing

Fabio, his gal pal + Jonas and I recently ate at Eathouse Diner and were inspired by their fantastic smoked trout salad. Jonas and I decided we had to replicate it at home and this is what we came up with.

As was the original, this salad was DELICIOUS.

We did make a few changes, for instance they used watercress and we switched our greens to baby spinach. It’s not as crunchy as the watercress, but it works well nonetheless.

This is a perfect summer dinner. You can serve it as your entree (starter) but Jonas and I happily ate it as our main course. It would be wonderful at a picnic too.

Smoked Trout & Potato Salad w Horseradish Crème Fraîche Dressing

Jonas & Anna’s very own recipe. Serves 4 as an starter.

Ingredients:
½ cup (125ml) crème fraîche
3 tablespoons (60ml) lemon juice
2 teaspoons lemon zest
2 tablespoons chives, finely chopped
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
3 teaspoons grated horseradish
700g potatoes, boiled then cubed
400g smoked trout, chopped
50g baby spinach
6 radishes, finely sliced

Method:

1. Make the dressing by whisking together the crème fraîche, lemon juice, lemon zest and grated horseradish.

2. In a large bowl add to the potatoes, radishes, chives and parsley enough dressing to suit your tastes and toss gently.

3. When you’re ready to serve, add the spinach and combine well. Top salad with trout.

sticky tamarind pork & pineapple skewers

Seven Days of Pineapple - Day 5

This recipe is influenced by South East Asian cooking, particularly Malaysian and Indonesian food where the salt combines from shrimp paste, the sour from tamarind, the sweet from palm sugar and the spice from chilli peppers.

The bursts of sweet pineapple cushioned between salty morsels of meat make a great meal or addition to a barbecue buffet.

If you don’t have an outdoor barbecue, a grill is just fine but the smoky, charred flavours of a barbecue are a great addition to this dish. I used pork, but you could use chicken just as easily.

Sticky Tamarind Pork & Pineapple Skewers

Anna’s very own recipe. Makes 12 kebabs.

Ingredients:

Kebabs
700g pork sirloin, cut into cubes
200ml pineapple juice
400g fresh pineapple, cubed

Sauce
120g grated palm sugar
80ml pineapple juice (extra)
20ml tamarind paste
6g belacan (shrimp paste)
2 small red (birdseye) chilli, finely chopped

Method:

1. To marinate the meat, place the pork and 100ml pineapple juice into a non-reactive dish (ceramic or plastic) and marinate in the fridge for an hour or so (the pineapple enzymes breaks down the protein and tenderises the meat).

2. To make the sauce, combine the palm sugar and pineapple juice in a saucepan and bring to the boil, dissolving the sugar.

3. Continue to simmer the liquid until it forms a sugar syrup. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

4. Wrap belacan in a little aluminium foil and roast in open flame for 30 seconds. You’ll know it’s ready because the smell becomes more apparent.

5. In a mortar and pestle, pound the belcaon and add the chilli into a paste. Add the tamarind paste and combine well. Drizzle in the sugar syrup and mix completely.

6. When ready to cook, drain meat from marinade, skewer then brush with the thick sugar syrup and barbecue, continuing to baste throughout the cooking process.

Pineapples supplied by the team at King of Fruit

razor clams w garlic & parsley butter

On a recent visit to the fish market, I was one happy girl when I spotted a bevy of razor clams.

They came from Scotland, so I don’t even want to think about the carbon emission from those food miles, but eating razor clams is a rarity for me, and I love them.

The best way to eat them is simply grilled in their shell with a little garlic butter and parsley, just the way they served them to me on Barceloneta beach.

Razor Clams w Garlic & Parsley Butter

Ingredients:
Razor clams
Butter, softened
Parsley, chopped
Garlic, crushed
Salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Mix the garlic, parsley, salt and pepper with the butter. Roll into a log then wrap in plastic and refrigerate until hard.

2. When ready to cook, open the razor clams and cut out the dark sections which include the gills, stomach and intestines.

3. Place on a layer of foil on a grill tray.

4. Cut strips of the garlicky butter and cover the length of the clam.

5. Grill for a minute or until the butter melts and the clam flesh firms but doesn’t get too tough.

czech garlic soup

Česneková Polévka

Back in 2003, I went on a little road trip through Slovakia and the Czech Republic with my cousin (Jožko), his girlfriend (Miška) and his pal (Braňo). It was an awesome journey taking in Prague, Karlštejn, Hluboká, Tabor, České Budějovice (Budweis) and Český Krumlov, not to mention the ingestion of copious amounts of beer and wine and slivovica - as only people in their youth can do!

Since the crew were Slovaks, we often ate in tiny traditional restaurants that rarely saw foreigners. It meant I had fantastic guides who explained the indecipherable menu thoroughly which allowed me to try some seriously delicious, authentic, local food.

My favourite food memories were the Bryndzové halušky (Slovak potato gnocchi with a sheep’s cheese sauce), utopenec (Czech pickled sausages), smažený sýr (a crumbed cheese steak, like a schnitzel made entirely of cheese) and this wonderful garlic soup.

We were eating in a small sporting club, somewhere in Bohemia, and the little restaurant served this rich, clear garlic broth. It was cold outside so the broth was intensely warming.

But what really lifted the soup to dizzying heights was the discovery of melted cheese and smoky pieces of pork at the bottom of the bowl. Each mouthful was an oozing spoonful of molten cheese and garlicky broth. Perfect!

For these past 8 years I have thought of that soup so often. Now that I’ve made it, as part of my 2011 Food Challenges, I can honestly say my own version is an excellent tribute to the original experience.

Cook it, and you can experience the joys of Czech food too.

Česneková Polévka (Czech Garlic Soup)

Anna’s very own recipe. Serves 4 as an entree (starter).

We used Eumundi Smokehouse's
pork fillet

Ingredients:
1 bulb garlic
1.5 litres chicken broth
Grated zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon marjoram leaves, picked over
300g peeled and cubed potatoes
50g smoked pork fillet, thinly julienned
125g edam, grated
Salt and pepper, to taste
Knob of butter, for frying
Teaspoon olive oil, for frying
A few extra marjoram leaves, for garnish
Crusty bread rolls, for serving

Method:
1. Peel the skin from all the garlic cloves and slice each into thin slithers.

2. Heat the butter and olive oil in a large pot then sauté garlic until very soft.

3. Add lemon zest and chicken stock, then bring to the boil.

4. Add salt and pepper, marjoram and potatoes. Boil for 8 minutes or until potatoes are soft.

5. Meanwhile, either in a large oven proof serving dish (or individual oven-proof serving bowls) spread the pork on the base and top with grated cheese. Grill for a few minutes until the cheese has completely melted. This way it sticks to the bottom of the dish when you add the soup.

6. When the potatoes are ready, taste the soup is seasoned properly, then ladle into the serving dish and sprinkle with a little more marjoram leaves. Eat immediately with crusty bread.

Note: If you can’t get hold of smoked pork, use a smoky ham. Also, you might be able to tell from the photos that I used thyme. Marjoram is the traditional ingredient; I just couldn’t find any that day! Thyme is a good substitute in a pinch.

achiote & tequila cured beef w pozole rojo

Image supplied by Ellie

"Paddock to Plate" Beef Degustation

A few weeks ago I participated in a very exciting event organised by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) and hosted by Warren Turnbull and his team at Assiette.

A lot of organisations are jumping on the social media band wagon, not understanding the differences between social media and traditional media.

You can’t just broadcast one-way to bloggers and expect them to pick up your content with interest. Blogging is about interacting with your readers and the world, not just a blathering monologue.

Sorry, was I blathering?

The point I’m trying to make here is that MLA created a social media event to draw food bloggers in a fundamental way: they made us the event. Clever.

So, eight bloggers were invited to learn more about beef with the help of a well-known Sydney-based chef, Warren Turnbull of District Dining and Assiette.

Each of us were allocated a cut of beef to create our own recipe and then Warren and his team would transform it into a restaurant dish for a special degustation dinner. Genius.

Beef producer, Alison McIntosh, handed over one of her prized Angus steers and Anthony Puharich, CEO of Vic’s Premium Quality Meat and owner of the fabulous butchery Victor Churchill, made the cuts and shipped them out.

I got given the beef knuckle. I had no idea how to cook a beef knuckle or even what it looked like! I thought it might be something I’d need to braise for hours. Nope!

Luckily Warren explained that a beef knuckle is a big slab of meat, often called a beef round, and is usually slow cooked as a roast.

One of the best parts of the challenge was talking through my ideas with Warren. It was fun to workshop recipes with a chef and even more rewarding to introduce him to some new ingredients (like hominy and achiote).

I think he was pretty excited about the opportunity to experiment too.

I steered him towards a pozole recipe, and he encouraged me to give curing a go. I think we were both happy with the results.

Here’s what I came up with.

Achiote & Tequila Cured Beef Knuckle with Pozole Rojo

Anna's recipe. Serves 8-10.

Achiote & Tequila Cured Beef Knuckle

Ingredients:
1.5kg beef knuckle eye, trimmed
330g (1½ cups) raw sugar
100g (1 cup) sea salt
190ml (¾ cup) tequila
1½ teaspoons achiote paste
4 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 teaspoons black peppercorns
½ teaspoon dried epazote (or dried oregano)

Extra for roasting:
1 teaspoon achiote paste
2 tablespoons olive oil

Method:
1. Grind the peppercorns and coriander seed with a mortar and pestle until coarsely crushed.

2. Add sugar and salt and grind a little. Add oregano.

3. Mix achiote paste with tequila to loosen it up, then add to sugar and salt. Mix until it has the texture of wet sand.

4. Lay a few layers of plastic wrap down, then coat all sides of the meat with a thick layer of the curing mix.

5. Wrap tightly then refrigerate for 24hrs (use a plate in case it leaks).

6. The next day, unwrap the meat and scrape off all the curing mixture. Wash and pat dry with kitchen paper. The meat will be darker and the exterior will have hardened a little.

7. Preheat the oven to 170’C (350’F).

8. Mix together the olive oil and extra achiote paste as well as you can. Rub the achiote oil mixture all over the meat.

9. Place on a roasting rack in a roasting tray. Set aside and allow the meat to come to room temperature.

10. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes for rare, but no more than 1 hour or until the centre reaches 50’C (120-125’F)

11. Remove roast and allow to sit for 20 minutes before cutting. Serve in thin slices.

Pozole Rojo (Red Hominy Soup)

Ingredients:
822g can pozole (hominy)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon achiote paste
2 onions, grated
12 garlic cloves, grated
2 chipotles chillies (in adobo sauce)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 litres beef consommé
Pinch of sugar
Salt, to taste

Garnish:
1 avocado, cubed
3 limes, juiced
½ iceberg lettuce, shredded
¼ cup fresh coriander, finely chopped
½ cup diced radish
½ cup crumbled queso freso (or tangy feta)
Thin slices of Achiote & Tequila Cured Beef Knuckle (above)

Method:
1. In a medium saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add pozole and cook for 15 minutes. Drain.

2. Heat olive oil in heavy based saucepan.


3. Add achiote paste, onion and garlic. Mash paste throughout and fry until mixture becomes dry.

4. Add chipotles and fry a little.

5. Then add tomato paste and fry until thickened.

6. Next add beef consommé and sugar and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.

7. Add pozole and simmer a further 5 minutes.

8. Remove from heat and stir in lime juice to taste.

9. Ladle soup into bowls. Pass garnishes separately so people can add to taste.

~ ~ ~

So, how did it look when Warren and the team were done with it?

Much more beautiful of course! It’s actually amazing to see how much skill and artistic talent chefs bring to humble home cooking.

Warren said they stuck to the curing recipe pretty closely, but reduced the tequila. But the biggest difference was the addition of agar agar to the soup broth transforming a warm dish into a cold one served with a thick sauce rather than soup.

The Assiette team were quite nervous that I wouldn’t like it, or that the flavour of the soup wouldn’t be the same, but once you mixed all the ingredients together and started to eat it could have been the very same dish as mine.

It was quite an amazing experience and the best social media PR event I’ve been invited to take part in because we were truly included rather than just bystanders. Kudos to Haussmann Communications for coming up with it and bravo to MLA for having the sense to agree. Take note other PR agencies!

Image supplied by Ellie

The full list of dishes served on the night really showed the diverse ways beef can be cooked and eaten.
- Beef & Ale Pie
- Achiote & Tequila Cured Beef Knuckle w Pozole Rojo
- Seared Sirloin, Buttered Roots, Horseradish & Wakame
- Thai Beef Salad w Mint, Peanuts & Chilli Dressing
- Beef Satay w Spicy Peanut Sauce, Rice Cake & Herb Salad
- Scotch Fillet w Moghrabiyeh
- Pulled Beef & Pine Mushroom Cannelloni
- Braised Beef in Coffee w Brandied Cumquats & Onion Milk
- Slow Braised Brisket w Cauliflower Cream & Pedro Ximenez Muscatels

If you want to see all the dishes of the night, check out these posts on my fellow blogger’s site:
Almost Bourdain
Aficionado
The Food Blog
The Gourmet Forager
Inside Cuisine
Taste
 

oysters w lime caviar

I love Sydney rock oysters. They taste so much better than the huge Pacific oysters.

Don’t get me wrong, if you gave me a dozen Pacifics I’d be a happy gal, but the rock oysters are simply sublime.

So why not match the native Sydney rocks to another native ingredient? Finger limes!

The beautifully coloured caviar looks wonderful and the tangy flavour is a perfect acidic accompaniment to the creamy rock oysters.

If you want more info on finger limes, try these two cocktail recipes.

Thanks again to Fred and Janet Durham at the Australian Finger Lime Company who generously gave me these finger limes.

Oysters w Lime Caviar & Black Pepper

Ingredients:
12 Sydney rock oysters
Caviar of 2 finger limes
Black pepper, to taste
Squeeze of regular lime juice
Drop or two of oil (avocado, sesame, olive)

Method:
1. Combine all the ingredients except the oysters into a bowl and mix to combine.
2. Top your oyster and enjoy!

This ticks off a 2011 Food Challenge to use more native ingredients.

gorgonzola, fresh figs & prosciutto bruschetta

This is a simple dish to make. So simple is doesn't need a recipe.

Just slice a baguette, toast it, rub some garlic on the sides.

Chop the figs, crumble the gorgonzola and curl the prosciutto on top.

Pepper, salt.

Devour!

These beauties were made lovingly for me by my gorgeous friend Shelle Belle.

Delicous.

bò tái chanh - lemon sirloin w rice paddy herb

After perusing through Helen’s recent posts about her food tour in Cabramatta, I became ravenous for Vietnamese food and determined to cook my own Vietnamese feast.

Ms Correct and I set the GPS to John Street then chatted until we reached our destination: Cabramatta, effectively Vietnam in Sydney.

The place was buzzing. The fruit, herb and veggie range was extravagant and the prices were absurdly cheap. As Ms Correct correctly asks “Why don’t we shop here every week?”

The whole time we were there, we must have seen only six other Caucasians and we marvelled at how exotic, exciting and foreign Cabramatta felt, even though it was still in Sydney. Ms Correct is quite tall at the best of times, but among Cabramatta’s Vietnamese population she was like Gulliver in Lilliput. We were certainly identified as outsiders and blatantly stared at, but people were welcoming and we felt comfortable.

We both felt so excited that Sydney had such a beautiful microcosm to explore.

Both Ms Correct and I have visited Vietnam, and Cabramatta felt like a cleaner, better-dressed version of HCMC, even down to the architecture of crowded market arcades and busy main streets. The local government, Fairfield City Council, is always touting Cabramatta as a tourist destination for Sydneysiders and visitors alike, and now I have to agree with them.

Navigating the narrow market aisles was difficult, but in true Vietnamese style other shoppers took no offence, and in fact didn’t even notice, getting whacked with the odd shopping bag.

We bought a huge range of things, the highlights being (left to right):

Many of the shop and stall owners don’t speak English and your mere non-Vietnamese speaking presence can be a cause of anxiety for them, so make sure you bring your understanding and patience with you. Don’t take offence when people shrug and walk away without helping, they probably just don’t understand you. Instead, wander to the next shop until you find someone who can speak English. There are many who do.

Like the shop keeper Ms Correct and I discovered at the end of our day. She was full of good advice and helped us navigate the Vietnamese-only signs and food labels. After learning I planned to make ice cream, her suggestion to buy frozen soursop pulp instead of fresh fruit was genius. Not only was the pulp super ripe and flavoursome but it had been skinned and deseeded and when it was blended through the hot custard, the icy cold temperature chilled everything immediately making the base ready to churn on the spot.

Once we were loaded up with goodies, we headed back to my place to cook up a storm from the beautiful cookbook The Secrets of the Red Lantern (tick off another food challenge).

Siblings Pauline and Luke Nguyen, and Pauline’s partner, Mark Jensen, are Sydney’s tres-chic experts on both traditional and modern Vietnamese food and their first cookbook is full of amazing recipes and heart-wrenching stories (that made me blubber like a baby).

This first recipe I'm posting is a favourite of mine from their restaurant, Red Lantern.


Little Em, Stinky, M.E. and Tia Bicky joined Ms Correct and I to eat:
* Bò Tái Chanh (lemon-cured sirloin w rice paddy herb)
* Nước Chấm (dipping fish sauce)
* Nem Nường (lemongrass pork sausages)
* Rau Muống Xào Tỏi (water spinach w ginger & garlic)
* Gỏi Mực Bắp Chuối (banana blossom & squid salad)
* Canh Chua Cá (tamarind & pineapple broth w perch)
* Kem Mãng Cầu Xiêm (soursop ice cream)
* Kem Dưa Hấu (watermelon sorbet)

I will post these recipes one by one over the coming months, but first up is this amazing little starter of juicy raw beef topped with the most delicious, unusual herbs. The best description can only come from the recipe’s author, Luke Nguyen:

“This traditional salad is a perfect starter. It is a ‘rare’ treat – refreshing, crisp and aromatic. Described by some as a ‘Vietnamese carpaccio’, Bò Tái Chanh is a particular favourite . . . rice paddy herb and sawtooth coriander are essential for this dish and should not be substituted. The rice paddy’s sharp citrus character and the sawtooth’s powerful aroma perfectly match this lemon-cured dish.”

I discovered that I love rice paddy herb (or ngò om). The flavours are like cumin and lemon and pepper altogether and I discovered it goes quite nicely on sweet pineapple slices too.

Sawtooth coriander (ngò gai) is also very special and is much more potent than regular coriander (cilantro), but I still think you could substitute them for each other if you needed to.

But you can’t substitute the rice paddy herb!!!

Bò Tái Chanh (lemon-cured sirloin w rice paddy herb)
Recipe from Secrets of The Red Lantern. Serves 6.
Ingredients:
400ml lemon juice
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon fine white pepper
500g sirloin steak
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 large handful sawtooth coriander, roughly chopped
1 large handful rice paddy herb, roughly chopped
½ small red onion, finely sliced
1 large handful bean sprouts
2 tablespoons chopped roasted peanuts
1 birds eye chill, sliced
Nước mắm chấm, to serve (see below)
Method:
1. Trim the sirloin or fat and slice as thinly as possible.
2. Heat 1 teaspoon oil and fry garlic. Remove and reserve both garlic and ½ teaspoon of the oil.
3. Combine the lemon juice, fish sauce and mix through the salt, sugar and pepper.
4. Arrange the slices of beef in a single layer on a plate and marinate in the lemon juice for 10 minutes, ensuring the meat is entirely covered in the curing liquid.
5. Remove the beef from the lemon mixture and drain the excess juice,.
6. Combine with the garlic, garlic oil, herbs onion and bean sprouts.
7. Transfer to a serving plate and garnish with the peanuts and chilli. Dress with nước mắm chấm at the table.

Nước Mắm Chấm (Dipping Fish Sauce)
Recipe from Secrets of the Red Lantern. Makes 1 cup (250ml).
Ingredients:
½ cup (125ml) water
3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 birds eye chilli, finely chopped
2 tablespoons lime juice
Method:
1. Combine the fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar and water in a saucepan.
2. Heat on medium, stirring, until just before boiling point. Cool.
3. To serve add chilli, lime juice and garlic and stir well.

Rice paddy herb (Limnophila aromatica) is native to tropical South East Asia and grows in water logged environments . . . like rice paddies! In the west it’s been used mostly as an aquarium plant but in Vietnamese (and some Thai & Khmer) cuisine it plays a strong role.

If all you’ve been doing is sticking in your fish tank, you’ve been missing out!

The leaves taste like lemon and cumin and is quite delicious.

Here’s some advice on how to grow your own: “Get some fresh stems from another plant or your local Thai or Vietnamese grocer. If placed in water, they will develop roots within one or two weeks; in the meantime, they must be covered with a plastic bag or the like to give them enough humidity. In this phase, direct sunlight will kill the plants, so put them in a shadowy but not dark place. When enough roots have been formed, plant the stems into a high, transparent container filled with soil to cover most of the roots. A mixture of ordinary soil plus small, porous grains of burned clay is perfect. Keep the plants warm and humid. After a few days, they will tolerate (and even appreciate) intensive sunlight.”

If substituted, it is often done so with coriander, sawtooth coriander, perilla, mint or basil.

Other names include:
Cantonese - séui fuh yùhng, tìhn hēung chóu, jí sōu chóu, séui fā
Mandarin - shuǐ fú róng, tián xiāng cǎo, zǐ sū cǎo
English - finger grass
Estonian - järvelemb
German - reisfeldpflanze
Indonesian - daun kerdemom, selasih ayer kecil
Japanese - shiso-kusa, rimonohira
Khmer - ma-om
Korean - soyeob, soyop, soyop-pul
Lithuanian - kvapioji pelkenė
Malaysian - beremi, kerak-kerak
Polish - limnofila pachnąca
Russian - амбулия ароматная ambuliya aromatnaya
Thai - ผักแขยง, แขยง phak kayang, kayang

This week our Weekend Herb Blogging hostess is Haalo from Cook (almost) Anything At Least Once.


References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limnophila_aromatica
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Limn_aro.html

salpicón de camarónes (veracruz prawn cocktail)

 
This recipe comes from Saveur, an American food magazine which I love.

The best way to explain a salpicón, is to take the words straight from Saveur:

“The word salpicón, which comes from the Spanish sal, salt, and picar, to chop, refers, in classic French cooking, to a mince of poultry, game, or vegetables bound with a sauce. In Mexico, however, it can mean anything from a shredded beef salad in the north to this citrusy shrimp appetizer”

As summer comes closer to Sydney I begin to crave raw seafood drenched in lime or lemon (but never both at the same time!). Adding chillies, coriander and avocado is an additional blessing and this dish is one of my all time favourite meals in summer.

It's also another 2009 food challenge since it's another Mexican recipe.

Salpicón de Camarónes (Veracruz-Style Prawn Cocktail)

Recipe from Restaurante Doña Lala in Tlacotalpan, Mexico.
Printed in Saveur Issue #12. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
1 lb. cooked small prawns (shrimp)
1 cored chopped tomato
½ small white onion, peeled +chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled +minced
1 fresh jalapeño, seeded +sliced
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
Salt & freshly ground white pepper
1 avocado, peeled + sliced
Lime wedges

Method:

1. Peel shrimp.

2. Mix together shrimp, tomatoes, onions, garlic and jalapeño.

3. Stir in oil and parsley, season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Top with avocado and garnish with lime wedges.

Note: I added coriander and used cherry tomatoes.

As my Weekend Herb Blogging entry, I’m focusing on the avocado. Our host is Katie from Eat This, so go check out the round-up.

Avocado has been my theme ingredient in two other WHB posts, one in 2007 (cold avocado soup from the Ivory Coast) and one in 2008 (avocado shake from Vietnam). So here’s 2009 and some avocado information copied dircetly from my 2007 post.

The word avocado comes from the Aztec (Nahuatl) word ahuacatl, via Spanish aguacate and means “testicle”. Perhaps because of its appearance, the Aztecs believed avocadoes were an aphrodisiac and called it "the fertility fruit". Apparently during avocado harvesting, virgins were kept indoors to prevent any promiscuity taking place.

This reputation stuck with the avocado for such a long time and many people in South America wouldn’t eat it because they wanted to appear wholesome. Companies had to undertake serious PR campaigns to dispel the myths and get the fruit out to the public.

The Nahuatl word ahuacatl makes up other words like ahuacamolli, meaning "avocado soup/sauce” which the Spanish transformed into guacamole.

In 2005, the world’s top ten avocado producing nations were, in order: Mexico, Indonesia, USA, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Peru, China and Ethiopia. As trees need well aerated soils and subtropical or tropical climates to thrive, this makes sense.

Propagation by seed takes around 5 years to produce fruit and the quality is never as good as the parent tree. Commercial plantations therefore graft new seedlings.

Avocadoes mature on the tree but ripen once harvested. The fruit is high monounsaturated fat contents and contains 60% more potassium than bananas, vitamin Bs, vitamin E, vitamin K and folate.

In Brazil, Vietnam, the Philippines, Jamaica and Indonesia avocadoes are blended with sugar and milk to create a milkshake.

It is also interesting to note that avocado foliage, skin and pits are said to poison animals such as birds, cats, dogs, cattle, goats, rabbits and fish.

~~~

This time previously on M&M:
2008 - Sago gula bali (Balinese coconut sago dessert)
2007 - Fatteh (Syrian chickpea & yoghurt breakfast)
2006 - Japanese-style tomato carpaccio

apple, walnut & blue cheese flaugnarde

This breakfast is a perfect treat for weekend brunch. It’s rich yet light. The apples are refreshing, the sage pungent and the walnuts add delicious texture. As I said, it’s perfect.

I can happily sing the praises of this recipe without arrogance since I pinched it from London Foodie in NY.

Our London Foodie (also Anna!) has her recipe listed under clafoutis, which was the name I was calling it too until I discovered that a clafoutis contains only cherries and that using any other fruit makes the dish a flaugnarde. You learn something every day!

So I made the flaugnarde for Jonas one weekend and it reignited my cooking passion.

I’ve been very uninspired lately. It’s almost as if by indulging myself with all the marvellous flavours and ingredients of the world I have become over-stimulated. Flavour-fatigue?

My lack of response to amazing recipes and food is quite interesting and I’m starting to understand how very rich people become blasé about their unlimited stockpiles of money. The excitement wears off after a while.

But this flaugnarde recipe piqued my interest again.

I got back into the kitchen, recently making David Lebovtiz’s chocolate ice cream, Maggie Beer’s vincotto & chocolate pavlova and Nigella Lawson’s broccoli & stilton soup. All excellent and all cleverly making use of leftovers from other recipes.

Now that the joy of cooking and eating is returning, I need to reinvigorate the blogging part. I have more than 100 back-logged recipes to post but zero energy to write them up. Some of you may have noticed my blog stuck on a palm heart recipe for the past 2 weeks? Perhaps my laziness means I don’t have any readers left!

Well, I’m endeavouring to do better again. Can’t promise anything because that’s likely to jinx me, but let’s hope this show is back on the road!

Now back to the flaugnarde, you could make it for brunch or even lunch with a nice glass of pinot gris and a lightly dressed baby spinach or mâche salad.

Apple, Walnut & Blue Cheese Flaugnarde

Recipe by London Foodie in NY. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
Batter
3 eggs
250ml (1 cup) buttermilk or whole milk
75g butter, melted
85g (2/3 cup) plain flour
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
50g crumbled blue cheese
Butter, for greasing
30g chopped walnuts
Filling
1 large tart apple, cored and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon chopped sage
1 tablespoon butter

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 200’C/400F/Gas 6. Grease a 9 inch square or round baking tin using extra butter and place in the heated oven with any leftover butter.

2. Mix together the eggs, buttermilk (or milk), melted butter, flour, sugar, salt and blue cheese until well combined.

3. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium-high heat until it begins to turn brown.

4. Add the apples, sugar, salt and sage then toss in the pan about 2-3 minutes, until the apples begin to soften slightly.

5. Remove the hot pan from the oven, quickly pour in just less than half the batter, scatter over the apples evenly then top with the remaining batter.

6. Scatter over the walnuts and bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until the edges have pulled away from the side of the pan and it’s golden all over.

7. Serve warm with a salad.

I've already written a post on sage and all it's benefits, so forgive me for not repeating it all again here. If you want to see a whole list of sage recipes, go visit that old post which includes my own rendition of Jamie Oliver's Scallops w Lentils, Pancetta & Sage.

I didn’t realise that Chris from Mele Cotte was our WHB host when I picked this apple recipe (mele cotte is Italian for baked apples).

It’s been a while since I visited Mele Cotte and lots has changed. For instance, Chris has a great job cooking up a storm but I can’t quite tell if it’s a hotel or a school or what! Visiting her blog was like catching up with an old friend and realising so much has changed and you’re totally out of the loop. Better stay in touch more often!

From the M&M archies:
2008 - Vietnamese lemongrass beef noodles
2007 - trahanas (Greek feta & pasta soup)
2006 - tangelo caprioska