Prawn curry laksa

I have been neglecting the blog for a while now. Actually a year now since my last post. I've been planning a lot of writing but nothing seemed to have appeared on paper (except for the weekly grocery list!) or even here.  Life happens.  But it's always great if I can document parts of it here.  Musings and random thoughts, along side a recipe or experience or something that made me excited in the kitchen.

It has been hectic in the home front with the girls starting high school this year, and my eldest finishing HSC last year.  The latter which has excited me the most, purely at the thought of having a daughter starting university came to a halt when child 1 decided not to pursue higher education.  It may not be every parent's dream but it is mine.  Having moved to Australia with so much more opportunities open to our children, education the foremost, it is disappointing to hear this. But.... as we are parents who respect our children's choices, we try not to push the "university" option at this point.  I hope and trust my faith, with the little "seeds" I've planted over the years and months over conversations with her, leading up to this moment about the benefits of having one.  I have loved learning as a child and as an adult.  Over the course of several years, I have enrolled myself in short classes in Sydney purely out of love for learning - to write (an online course on Freelance Journalism), to cook (a Certificate III in Commercial Cookery), of other languages (a term learning Spanish!), and other pockets of learning from elsewhere, whether its volunteering at the local art sculpture event, short council sponsored workshops on composting or gardening or reading books that arouse my creativity.  Not necessarily implementing everything learned but the idea of being in a new environment, meeting new people, doing new things excites me.

Another exciting adventure came in the form of the Thermomix.  I have to say this post is not about how good it is (besides that), it is also how much fun I am enjoying having it in my kitchen and taking it as a part of a business.  I've decided to be a Thermomix Consultant to earn myself one, because really, it blew me away when I first saw it.  I heard about it way back 5 years ago and never thought anything of it.  Since I became a consultant early this year, I have been to meetings and events that were as stimulating as it is enjoyable.  Meeting new people and helping them learn another method of cooking is very satisfying.  Anyways. 

Back to the swing of things.  My last post was when I did the Bridge Run last year. And my new post is also an ode to the running event I did yesterday - the Sydney City2Surf: a 14k run/walk from the Sydney CBD to Sydney's most iconic beach that is Bondi.  This time the walk was a little bit further and took more effort as the route took us to steep roads and hills.  It took me 3 hours and 21 minutes,  to walk the stretch - all good with the sunny weather Sydney put out yesterday plus I had some company walking. After the 8k mark it became tougher mentally, as the hills seemed to becoming endless plus the lack of proper training and the need for sustenance were cries for pausing, to stop and sit and wait it out.  But motivation endures as endless hordes of families with kids, senior groups of women, of old couples pass us, it was a fitting inspiration to soldier on and slowly make it to the finish line. The prize is a medal plus the feeling of accomplishing something that is a feat in my dictionary.  It was also motivation to be a part of the a team that we were supporting - the NSW Organ and Tissue Donation, the Donate Life project.  Which was worth all the effort!

Of course, after the more than 3 hours of walk, then having to leave the beach via buses and then train to get me home, I was craving for some good laksa to tide me over, to get my mind off the sore legs and aching soles of my feet.  I didn't get to eat some but it's fitting that I share this recipe now that I'm at it.

This one is a fitting recipe that is adapted from SBS Food for a Malaysian curry laksa recipe.  I made the chicken stock with chicken bones bought from my butcher.  I could not find candlenuts so I didn't add that to the paste, as well as using a Filipino brand of wet shrimp paste. This is a pre Thermomix recipe so I made the paste in a food processor which made the paste a little bit more grainy. When I made the soup, I strained all the grits before adding in the rest of the ingredients (prawn, fish balls, tofu etc).

The usual suspects for a laksa paste - shrimp paste (use the dry one called belakan), dried shrimps soaking, dried chillies, galangal, ground spices - turmeric, cumin, paprika, coriander and lemon grass.  

Ground spices!

Laksa paste - still a bit grainy with small bits

Making homemade chicken stock

Prawn laksa

Ingredients for Laksa Paste

 8 small dried red chillies (soaked in a bowl of water for 30 minutes)
2 tbsp dried shrimp (soaked in a bowl of water for 30 minutes)
5 red Asian shallots, chopped
1 tbsp finely chopped galangal
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 large lemongrass stalks, trimmed, chopped
1 tbsp belachan/dried shrimp paste (see post)
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground turmeric

Combine all ingredients in a food processor (or Thermomix) and process until smooth.  Keep in air tight container in the fridge until ready for use.

Ingredients for the Prawn Laksa 

1/4 cup sunflower oil

2 tablespoons of laksa paste

1.5 litres chicken stock

2 and 1/2 teaspoon grated palm sugar

450 grams chicken thigh fillets, thinly sliced

10-12 prawns,shelled and tails left intact

1 can 400ml coconut milk

10-12 fish balls (see tips below)

150 grams tofu puffs, sliced (see tips)

200 grams bean sprouts

500 grams thin rice noodles

Heat oil in a large saucepan or pot. Add the laksa paste and cook, stirring until fragrant.

Add stock and stir to combine. Add more laksa paste if preferred.  Bring to a simmer then add chicken and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the prawns and cook for another minute until chicken is cooked and prawns half way through.

Add the coconut milk, fish balls, tofu puffs and bean sprouts.

Stir to combine then bring to a simmer until prawns are cooked.

Cook the rice noodles separately in a different pot. Drain.

Spoon the cooked rice noodles into individual bowls, pour over the laksa with and garnish according to preference.

 To serve - garnish with fried Asian shallots, mint leaves and a teaspoon of shrimp paste or sambal, and a lime/lemon wedge on the side

Tips:

* You can buy combination packs of frozen fish balls, tofu, etc in most Asian supermarkets.

* Before adding the chicken to the stock-paste soup, strain all the grits and grains and return the cleaner stock to the pot.  Discard the paste grains.


And here are photos from yesterday's running/walking event!

Lemon and sour cream cake with raspberries

I found a new hobby.  Colouring books!  If you haven’t already noticed, adult colouring books is the trend at the moment and publishing companies are selling them by the millions.  Marketed as therapeutic and anti-stress, colouring books for adults have become hip thanks to social media.  People who are into colouring books posts their creations on social media and it just creates the pull which is making the publishers very happy.

A standard page would take me from an hour to 3 hours, glued to the page instead of watching some TV series on Netflix or browsing on Facebook and Instagram.  While it may be my own form of digital detox, it does deliver its own spell of mindfulness and calmness claims.  Indulging in a new hobby, engrossed with colour pencils sliding across the page, sticking to the lines, mix matching colours onto patterns somehow gives me a sense of fulfillment as I create something visual and beautiful.  I started borrowing colour pencils from the girls, but now that I have my own set, I can colour to my heart’s content.

Although this does not replace my love for cooking, baking and writing, it does give me something to do while waiting for dinner to cook, or the cake to be warm and the cookies to cool.



How about you?  Have you started a new hobby lately?
 

Now to this cake that is a revisit from the archives.  A lemon yoghurt cake dressed with raspberries.  This is my go to cake recipe when I'm asked to bring a cake.  Why?  Because it's easy as A-B-C, 1-2-3.  No need for a mixer.  Just good ol' fork and little bit of elbow grease.

Ingredients

1 and 3/4 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

2-3 teaspoon lemon juice

grated rind of 2 lemons

3/4 cup light olive oil

1 cup sour cream

2 cups self-raising flour

1 cup (or more) fresh or frozen raspberries

Icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 180*C.  Line a round 20cm cake tin with baking paper.

In a mixing bowl, mix rind, oil, eggs and sugar with a fork.

Add remaining ingredients and combine well.

Add the raspberries and stir to distribute around the pan and some to sprinkle on top of the batter.

Pour into cake pans and bake at 180 degrees C for 30 minutes.

Leave to cool on a cooling rack, then turn out onto a plate.  

Dust with icing sugar (if using).

* You can use natural yoghurt or buttermilk as substitute for sour cream and the result will be the same.

Bottle gourd stir fry

Filipino cuisine is making waves around the globe which makes me proud.  Just recently, I wrote a post about a pop-up afternoon stand up event in Sydney delighted the palates of the locals with the introduction of classic savoury and sweet Filipino dishes. There's quite a few of these Filipino restaurants now in Sydney and it's getting a good following from locals, not just fellow Filos or Pinoys as we usually called ourselves. 

The well known amongst the community is La Mesa along Goulbourn Street, Haymarket.  It has been around since 2002 and previously located in Dee Why.  In 2012 they moved to Haymarket and have since created a good following of locals and tourists.  The decor is reminiscent of an old fashioned Filipino home - a mix of contemporary and classic Filipiniana decor.  The serving platters are all home-grown Filipino vessels flown from the Philippines. Sizzling Fillo in Lidcombe boasts of authentic Filipino dishes served in big portions enough to share amongst 3-4 people. The place invites locals and those who will travel a few kilometres to partake of the generous servings and Saturday night karaoke.  Eating and singing - two of Filipinos favourite things to do.  Sizzling Fillo also boasts of a regular "boodle feast"- a buffet of selected classics served on "your" table on a bed of banana leaves.



My favourite is Cafe Manila in Kirribilli - a small cozy cafe serving traditional Filipino dishes suited to the western palate - leaning away from traditional starchy dishes and the portions are just right. The interior is very minimalist and the tables are quite small creating an intimate experience for the diners. Chef Ricky Ocampo is always in the house serving up dishes with a smile as if you are a guest at his home. The menu is lean and the food is well presented on the plate.  Chef Ricky is one of local Filipino featured in the SBS Food Safari Filpino Food.


Another one in north shore is Pamana Cafe and Filipino Restaurant in Chatswood.  The place is cafe style with tables for two, up to ten.  The menu is more extensive with a range dishes from breakfast to dinner, entree to desserts -  a variety of traditional Filipino dishes both savoury and sweet.  They also offer "boodle feast" on select days. Although the location is quite away from pedestrian traffic, it has since opening in 2013 gathered a local following.


Now this dish is not something you'd see in any of the menus from these restaurants.  This is a super simple dish that's not worthy of a restaurant feature but definitely worth the 30 minutes that you spend to cook it. The thing with Filipino dishes is, if its easy enough to cook at home, you won't find it at restaurants.  We (Filipinos) when at these restaurants, usually order dishes we seldom cook at home, or not at all.


Bottle gourd is an indigenous vegetable in the East Asian region.  It is commonly called "upo" in the Philippines or calabash in some western countries.  The bottle gourd has a lot of health benefits and in some countries, they juice is used to encourage weight loss.


I love the simplicity of this dish.  Almost pedestrian.  You only need 5 basic ingredients.  And can even make it vegetarian by omitting the pork.


Here goes.

Ingredients

250-300 grams pork, cut into cubes

1 piece bottle gourd, sliced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, sliced

2 tomatoes, sliced

1 cup water

1 tablespoon cooking oil

salt and pepper to taste

fish sauce (optional)

Method

In a medium sized skillet, heat the oil and cook the pork pieces until crispy.  Set aside.

In the same pan, saute the onions and garlic and cook until fragrant, not burned.

Add the tomatoes and stir until soft.

Add the bottle gourd slices and water and bring to boil.

Season with salt and pepper, or fish sauce is using. Season to your taste.

Turn down heat and simmer until the goured is soft and cooked.

Add the crispy pork slices on top.

Disclaimer: The feature on the mentioned restaurants is a simple feedback from the writer's experience dining at these establishments.  Dining at the restaurants were to the writer's own expense.  This is not a paid feature.  The feature is written to assist locals and tourists who may be looking for Filipino restaurants within Sydney metropolitan. 

Pork and beans

Growing up a few decades ago compared to today, there were so few choices when it came to food.  The cereal variety was maybe about less than ten.  There were no gluten free pasta or bread, no dairy free butter, no sugar free muffins.   Coffee was coffee, no soy, light, chai, etc.  A steak was usually T-bone, no varieties such as Wagyu, Angus, or labels such as corn fed, grass fed, aged, dry aged, etc.  Food was food.  There were no unnecessary labels.  Whether it was fresh - from the ground, from a tree/plant or packed - cans, boxes, plastic packaging.   Today, it's an entirely different story.  Whatever happened to simple food?  

In his 2009 book Food Matters, Mark Bittman mentioned modern agriculture, global warming, sustainability and the change towards conscious eating. These days, we don't look at calories anymore. Consumers are conscious about where their food comes from, the carbon footprint, whether its organic, grown locally or imported from half way around the globe.  This kind of mentality creates a good set of consumers. Smart consumers.  But then we also create a lot of waste.  In Australia alone, consumers waste an estimate of 4 million tons of food each year!  Because what happens is we tend to shop more than what we can actually consume.  (How not to waste food shall be for another post!)

I'm not a fan of food fads but I do believe in simple good food. Seasonal cooking is always how we plan our menu at home.   Simple food prepared at home. With love.  For family and friends.

Now growing up, we were fed with lots of food I wouldn't normally buy these days. Our parents back then fed us with what they knew best.   Powdered orange juice (Tang), canned vienna sausages... including a favorite breakfast fare a million years ago.  Canned pork and beans.  A mixture of beans covered with sweet tomato sauce and about 1 to 2 pieces of pork.  We used to eat it on toasted white bread and loved it for breakfast and even after school snack. And sometimes ate it with rice too.  It's a Filipino thing (rice with everything).

Now this is my take on the canned pork and beans I grew up eating.   A simple dish made of 2 basic ingredients:  pork and beans! 

Ingredients

200 grams pork belly, cubed

300 grams French beans, cut into 2 inch pieces

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

vegetable oil 

chilli flakes (optional)

Method

Heat a shallow pan and add cooking oil.

Fry the pork pieces until crispy.  Set aside.

Using the same pan, add the garlic and cook until soft and fragrant. Do not overcook or burn.

Add the beans, and stir to cook the beans until bright green, about 2 minutes.

Add the cooked pork and stir to mix through.

Add the chilli flakes (if using) and stir.  Turn off heat.

Serve with steamed rice.

Baked maple pears with toasted pistachios

No more whingeing around here of being too cold.  We have been blessed with warm air and clear blue skies.  And so I am catching up on some needed writing and blogging as it is the end of September, and we are halfway through to spring.  Spring cleaning at home and the backlog of recipes and photos to post.  

We have revamped our veggie garden as the seedlings planted in winter did not survive and to take the easier route, we bought some ready-to-plant veggies from the local nursery.  Hopefully, there will be some harvest of French beans, eggplants, strawberries, Habanero and birds eye chillies soon.  Our calamansi plant is finally showing some fruits after last year's drought.  This makes me very happy as any Filo would be.

And now catching up on some blog posts, this recipe is the easiest dessert there is that you can bring to any potluck party.  The idea to make this was initially to make it for a vegan at work who was retiring.  And I also brought this to a work birthday lunch and ever since, people have asked for the recipe and they have made it at home with spectacular results.   It's really easy.  I love easy dishes.  Those that you prep and then you just wait for the magic to happen.  Be it a slow braised on the stove, or a baked maple pear in the oven.  You prep it and you wait for an hour.


The recipe is adapted from an old cookbook from my shelves - Marie Clare Fresh + Fast Simply Delicious Healthy Food

To make these baked maple pears

Ingredients:

7 Corella pears, halved and cored*

3 tablespoons real maple syrup

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil*

1 cup toasted pistachios, roughly chopped

1 cup creme fraiche or whipped cream

Method

Preheat oven to 180*C

Cut a thin slice from the skin side of the pears to give them a flat surface.

Place the pears onto a shallow baking dish, skin side down.

Drizzle olive oil and the maple syrup onto the pears.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 1 hour.

The pears should be tender when a butter knife inserted comes out smoothly.

Serve with the creme fraiche or thickened cream on the side, and the toasted pistachios.

Tips and tricks:

* The original recipe called for unsalted butter to rub on the pears.  I used olive oil as I brought it for someone who is vegan.

* You can use other pear varieties. Corella pears tend to be tougher than most so it cooks for an hour.  Other pear varieties are tender and may be baked for less than an hour.

* You can make as many or as little as you like, just adjust the maple syrup to your requirements.

Asparagus, smoked salmon, lemon and chilli risotto

 

Asparagus is one of the many vegetables I loathed as a child.  I hated the smell.  It doesn't help that it usually came from a can as spears and sometimes as cream of asparagus soup.  You know the brand.  Maybe it was the fact that there was rarely fresh asparagus available where I grew up, or simply because it's another "green" vegetable like brocolli. 

Well, somehow I outgrew that hate.  And these days, when they're available at my local fruit and veg shop or at the markets, they go straight into my market basket.  They're so versatile and so easy to cook. 

As part of the #huonsalmon challenge, I prepared this dish for a Taste of Harmony celebration at work.  We were to bring a dish (or ingredient) that starts with the first letter of our name.  And I chose A for Asparagus.

Ingredients

3 tablespoon light olive oil

 

1 garlic, finely diced

1 medium onion, finely diced

2 cups arborio rice

200 ml white wine

400 ml vegetable or fish stock (or water) 

250 grams Huon Reserve Selection Blacked Spice Hot Smoked Salmon, shredded 

rind of 1 lemon

400 grams asparagus spears, cut into 1.5 cm

2-3 chillies, chopped

1 cup grated parmesan



Method

In a heavy skillet or enameled cast iron pan, heat the olive oil.

Add the garlic and onions and stir until soft.

Add the arborio rice, and stir to coat the rice.

Add the white wine, stirring and let it simmer for a minute until the sauce is reduced.

Turn the heat to a low simmer, add a cup of stock/water and put lid on and let the rice simmer.

Check after 2-3 minutes and if the sauce is reduced, add more stock/water and let it simmer until rice is almost cooked. (if the rice is getting dry, keep adding half a cup of extra stock or water.  Don't let the rice get dried up and burn the bottom of the pan.)

Add the salmon and asparagus, rind of lemon and the chillis. Stir to balance the ingredients evenly in the pan. 

Add 2/3 of the grated parmesan and stir to coat.

Turn off heat and cover.  Let the risotto sit for awhile before serving.

Serve with extra parmesan on top.

This risotto is something I dish up at home on a weekday, using any ingredient on hand (canned tuna sometimes, or just plain vegetables like mushrooms). But this time, it is with the Huon Reserve Selection Blacked Spice Hot Smoked Salmon.  I love the naturally smoked flavour and the combination of native Australian spices.  And it went well at our office Taste of Harmony lunch.  It also helps that it's a simple dish to whip up during Lent.

Disclaimer: The writer (adobo down under) was invited to take part in the #huonsalmon blogging challenge and Huon Aquaculture has provided the products mentioned in this recipe.