Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Pan Fried Barramundi


Bake some potatoes after dressing with olive oil and seasoning

When potatoes are ready pan fry your fish fillet

Dressing with spring onion and sliced chilli after turning

Steam your asparagus

Serve

This is included because i was asked for some simple food ideas for children to put together.

Seafood Risotto













This is a simple entree

Place 1/2 cup aborio rice in a saucepan with olive oil, coat and lightly cook

Preprepared stock
1.5 cups fish stock
2tbs light soy
1tbs fish sauce
Fill to 2 cups with rice wine

Add 1 cup of stock to the rice and cook until it all absorbs and the rice is tender

Meanwhile reduce the rest of the stock until it thickens.

Prepare the seafood you could use pre cooked lobster, prawns, crab or bugs. In this case I used a japanese style lobster flavoured fish.

Serve the rice using a mold top with your seafood and cover with your reduced sauce.

Vegetarian Aussie Curry











Start with some olive oil heat
Add 4 diced potatoes
2 Diced carrots
1 Diced onion
3 tbs curry powder
Cover with water and simmer until all vegetables are tender

(You can add whatever vegetables you have left in the fridge)
Then add 2 tins of TVP (I used sanitarium nut meat)
2 Diced tomatoes
1 can pineapple pieces

Reduce until it thickens and serve on rice.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Pesto Salmon on Roast Potato


Bake your potato with olive oil and parmesan cheese
Pan Roast the salmon until the skin is crispy
Lightly cook the asparagus

Crush potatoes, place salmon on top and dress with pesto
Place asparagus with butter on top

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Luke Mangan's Autobiography


The Making of a Chef
Luke Mangan

An interesting autobiography that gives a real insight into the cooking industry,  the writer describes himself as not so much as a culinary genius but as a hard worker dedicated to succeed.  For those of us outside the industry the glamour that the current celebrity chef movement needs to be tempered by realistic exposure to the reality of cooking professionally.

The last thing this book does is glamorise the industry. On the other hand it does show what can be achieved with hard work and dedication. More than anything Mangan underlines that no matter what goes wrong you need to continue to try for the things you really want in life.

We follow the young man who likes to cook but doesn’t really know what he wants to do. Mangan eventually does his apprenticeship as an alternative to staying on at school. He travels to the UK and talks himself into a number of top kitchens. His experiences and interest set him on the path to run his own business.

The stories of his business ventures are interesting, certainly showing that cooking good food is not the same as running a successful restaurant. Certainly if you are a fan of Luke Mangan’s food, or curious to find out about a well known Australian food figure. Of course recipes for some of his more well known recipes are included.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Roast Chicken with Pancetta and Mustard Cream Sauce











Take one chicken season and rub with olive oil
Bake for 1 hour 180c
Then place several slices of pancetta in oven along with par boiled potatoes

For sauce take low fat thickened cream, add lemon thyme, and 2tsp of seeded mustard
Simmer until reduced and combined.

Cut chicken into pieces serve with potatoes and appropriate vege, dress with sauce.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Miguel's Tapas

Miguel Maestre is a flamboyant over the top chef who has a passion and enthusiasm for Spanish inspired food. Whilst he has a range of restaurant experience its his appearances on television that most Australians will remember. His style is the opposite to laid back, he is a high energy enthusiastic cook.

The recipes in this book are a mixture of traditional tapas dishes, which many will readily recognise but there are also some of the chefs own creation inspired by Australian styles and food preferences. He stresses in his introduction that he feels the laid back Australian life style is ideally suited to tapas.

This book is organised a little differently to other tapas cookbooks I have in that its organised around the time of day. So we have breakfast, morning tea, lunch all the way through to late night snacks. The very last section of the book contains detailed explanations of basics and saucing. In all the book contains around 75 different dishes to experiment with.

Myself I could not go past the crispy potato and Chorizo Egg for breakfast.

Crispy potato and Chorizo Egg

Heat olive oil in a non stick pan
Spoon 1 small grated potato into 2 creased egg rings
Top with sliced chorizo
Cook until potato is crisp
Crack an egg on top of mix cook until egg is just done
Remove rings serve with bread and lemon.

I just loved this first thing in the morning filling and just so simple. Many of the dishes throughout this book are simple and straightforward. These are ideal dishes for a lazy summers day. Here in Australia we are just moving into summer and a few 30c days are a reminder of the real heat still to come. Where we will want tasty food that is quickly prepared and ideal fro eating in a casual setting.

Some of the dishes are very modern and provide a chance to use contemporary favourite ingredients. One that looks great and is certainly next on my list to try is a softshell crab and sauté of edamme. If desert is more your thing how about a bread and butter pudding made with leftover sourdough and Pedro Ximenz. There is something I am sure that will appeal to every one in this book.

Its not all positive however and although every dish is pictured on a full page the illustrations do dominate the recipes. If you love lots of colour pictures in your cookbook you will love them in this book. However I feel there needs to be a  balance between pictures and recipes and I feel this book has gone too far with its pictures.

Chorizo Cider Style

Boil in 250ml water, 250mls white wine vinegar, 2tbs castor sugar four peeled eschallots until soft
Meanwhile fry 3 sliced chorizo in a hot pan
Add eschallots (after draining)
1 tbsp of chopped parsley
Deglaze with Apple cider (50ml)
Serve with parsley garnish



I hope these 2 recipes give a feel for the book as a whole. It is well and thoughtfully laid out. The recipes are well explained and easy to reproduce. The techniques are also well explained and easy to follow. I know I will be cooking from this book for some time a worthy first book.

Garlic Octopus with Chorizo


Marinate baby octopus in olive oil, 2tsp smoked paprika and crushed garlic

Dice 1 spanish onion
Slice 2 chorizo sausages
Slice one red chilli
Drain 1 can white beans
Dice 2 tbs flat leaf parsley

Fry the sausage until crispy remove and drain
Fry remaining ingredients in oil from the sausage.

In a separate frypan cook the octopus mixture
Combine the two return sausage to and heat

Serve with crusty bread and lemon juice

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Tomato and Spinach tart

Heat oven to 180c line a pastry tin with short crust pastry, blind bake.
Heat a saucepan and add olive oil add one diced onion and 1 cup baby spinach chopped
Layer onto base of tart
Whisk together 3 eggs, 1/3 cup milk, 1/3 cup tasty cheese
Pour into case
Top with sliced cherry tomatoes
Bake until set about 20 mins

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Chessy potatos


Another tapas.

Par boil 3 baby potatoes
Then cut in half drizzle with olive oil and oven bake until browned.
Cover with grated parmesan cheese and gently melt.

Roasted Octopus

Another form of tapas.

Fry until tender 6 baby octopus in plenty of olive oil and season with salt, pepper and paprika.
Add 10 flat parsley leaves fry until crisp
Serve with a wedge of fresh lemon

Chorizo Cider Style

This is  a form of tapas

Boil in 250ml water, 250mls white wine vinegar, 2tbs castor sugar four peeled eschallots until soft
Meanwhile fry 3 sliced chorizo in a hot pan
Add eschallots (after draining)
1 tbsp of chopped parsley
Deglaze with Apple cider (50ml)
Serve with parsley garnish

Food from Northern Laos – The Boat Landing cookbook



Traveling With Your stomach

Sometimes the closest thing to travel we can experience is food. There is nothing quite like tasting a new cuisine, that first moment of surprise and hopefully of delight as we sample for the first time a raft of new and different flavour combinations. Australians love to travel and I as I asked around none of my friends had actually been to Northern Laos close to the Chinese and Burmese borders. So this book was really going to show me something new.
Culloty has taken the time to not only research the regions food but to delve into the ingredients and explain them in detail. The book begins by explaining the diverse ethic cultures that form up this part of the world and the copious illustrations help to create the feeling that the reader is there. When you add to this photos and descriptions of the unique local ingredients we can start to get a sense of how different and new this cuisine is.
At this point I was starting to think I would be unable to sauce many of the ingredients, due to there exotic and unusual nature. Culloty has thought this through and has painstakingly listed with each recipe alternate (more readily available) substitutions for those had to find items. Of the 5 dishes I cooked I was easily able to sauce the ingredients from the local Vietnamese supermarket.
The food itself is fresh and vibrant. Did I say FRESH, well I will say it again. I cooked a fish curry which I thought would taste something like a Vietnamese or Thai dish, it did not. It had a gentleness and subtlety of flavour that was all its own.  Smoked Fish Boiled Jeow, was real delight, fresh and spicy but subtle with its heat. What did surprise me is the leftovers in the fridge, which I wanted to have for lunch, were so disappointing. The subtle and delicate flavours went and I was reminded of the writers warning FRESH is best with Laotian food.

The food itself is a blending of Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese influences but to only see it as a blend is to miss the originality and uniqueness of the food.  The Spicy Pork salad could easily have been Chinese and I have no doubts it started there, but the flavours are so different to the Chinese equivalent that you could not mistake the two.  There is a range of dishes here ranging from meat and fish to fried and noodle based. If you like South East Asian food then this book will give you a new take on that part of the world.
My favourite food is soup; I love it in all its varieties. This fish soup is lovely, light yet spicy and full of delicate flavours.
 Sour Fish Soup
Bring 2 cups of Water to the boil
Add 1 cup of loosely packed sour wind leaf (or tamarind leaves or tamarind paste or kaffir lime leaves and 1 tabs vinegar)
Add 1tsp salt, I diced chilli, and 1 bruised lemon grass stalk.
Add 1 cup of chopped fish pieces
Finish with diced spring onion, 1 stem of basil, 1 tsp. fish sauce
Serve
This made a delightful light lunch.
This book is certainly going into my bookshelf; it offers a fresh authentic look into a very different Asian cuisine.