Dinner with Bills

Here we go with another part in the bill-series before the month of May comes to its end. It was long due anyway. While I have had at least one more dinner dish from Bills Sydney Food before I already wrote about it under different circumstances. There was for example the dish: Prawn and Chilli Linguine …

Well, if you follow the link, of course you find the old post. However, we like to go on with something more current, although it is pasta again.

The dish is called Fresh Tomato Pasta. The aim was to get as much taste out of the tomatoes as possible. So best it would be to have as best tomatoes as you can get.

There is not much fuss about it. Apart from the tomatoes and the pasta, you have just some sea salt, olive oil, red wine vinegar, juice and zest of a lemon, red chilli, black pepper and some basil leaves. It tasted fresh indeed.

For sure I will make that one again … well, I have all the ingredients at home most of the time, although the tomatoes could be a bit better, since they are not in full swing yet.

The other dinner dish I tried is not for the main course, but rather for pudding: Pavlova. I will not start this background discussion regarding the origin of pavlova again. After all, that is not what this is about.

Well, that looks already lovely and … was not that difficult to accomplish. However, it still has to go into the oven. The challenge is to have it over one hour in the oven at 120 °C, get it firm on the outside and don’t let it brown. Hm, eh, well, judge for yourself …

That was the best I could do. Maybe you can notice the colour difference in comparison with the whipped cream. Whatever the case, it tasted delicious with the pulp of the passionfruit.

Now that was the dinner part I tried so far, now I could start again with breakfast thing. Besides that, I should get cooking again.

If I remember it right, I kind of challenged myself to try as many recipes from Bills Sydney Food as possible. Eh, that doesn’t sound like a challenge at all. Ah, no worries, I don’t need a challenge, it’s just about having a bit of fun …

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In the past I was younger, but now ... Vatapa

That's a ridiculous thought! In the past I was younger. Although I know that for sure, I am not quite so sure whether I'm already feeling it. Today at work already half way through, I thought it could be over now, because my energy was gone and yesterday evening I was totally shattered. Somehow, it seems, I can't do the things anymore I was able to do five years ago. Somehow! Ah, that is really ridiculous! There ought to be a different reason for all that.
On the other hand, today, I am able to do things I wasn't able to do five years ago. Something like this ...

That's a Brazilian dish called Vatapa, a stew with fish, prawns, cashews and coconut milk. Fine, I had read something about it a month ago and we already had an entry with this dish for Bloggers Around the World quite at the beginning, but I didn't read anything about it lately.
So today, I just went for it without looking at any recipe, with just the key-thoughts in mind: you have to use fish, prawns, cashews and coconut milk.
Well, I let you know some more details now ...

Ingredients:
Splash of vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 medium sized red peppers, roughly chopped
1 small red chilli
4 small tomatoes, quartered
100 g salmon
100 g prawns
100 g cashew nuts, roasted and salted
165 ml coconut milk
150 ml water
3 spring onions, chopped up
A hand full of chopped fresh coriander
Salt and pepper

Method:
First heat up a sufficiently large pan with the vegetable oil and start with the chopped up onion in it until those pieces go soft. Try not to cry while chopping the onion, though.
Good, if you want to serve the dish with rice, it might take as long from this point on as it takes to prepare steamed rice, at least in the way I use to do it.
Back to the pan, we add the red peppers, chilli and tomatoes. Cook for a few minutes, so the vegetables start to soften up a bit, but we still want to have some crunch on those peppers in the end.
Time for the fish, prawns, cashews, coconut milk and water to join. Bring everything to the boil and let it all simmer for 10-15 minutes. If you want to reduce it more, increase the time, but then the rice will already be ready before you are finished (that shouldn't be any problem) or the peppers might go to soft. Choose for yourself, what you like.
Just before you are finished, check the taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, if you have to.
Now add the spring onions and chopped coriander. It's time to serve, it's time to eat, it's time to enjoy. I did!

I would say now, this dish is for the World Cup Bloggers Around the World as Brazil is playing Germany today. For Germany I only have some beer in the fridge. No, I don't think the colours of the labels have any meaning as to the German flag, although on this photo it might look like it. 

I might try the left one of them later today. It's called Marc's Chocolate Bock. That sounds intriguing. I would never have thought about buying those beers would it not have been for a 20 % discount at the shop due to the World Cup. This 20 % was on any kind of beer. So people were really pushing out beer from the shop in truck loads.
Anyway, I will see whether that beer was worth its cost. After all one of my workmates recommended it to me. He knows a lot more about beer than I do, but then on the other hand, everyone has to find out for himself, what he likes or not.

Enough about beer! I am not going to do any advertisement for beer here right now. No one asked me to and I have no time for it now.

Well, I also want to add this post to the No Waste Food Challenge. I wouldn't want to miss that one this month. This month Anne from Anne's Kitchen is hosting on behalf of Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. After all I saved those red peppers from annihilation as they were far too advanced toward that direction already. Good, it was time for the prawns, too as they were freezing away in the freezer already.

As a conclusion ... I might not be 20 anymore, but since then I have learned a lot and I don't want to trade in this experience ...

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Fish Soup (#ReadCookEat)

I reckon you don't want to hear anything about snow right now, but ... I do it anyway. Where does it say that you have to read books playing in winter and with snow and winter and summer books in summer? Does this aid your imagination or what?
Well, I read a certain book, when I feel like it. There was it on my bookshelf: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow or as you would call it in the original Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne by Peter Høeg. What shall I say? For sure there are better short summaries of the book online somewhere, but I still give it a shot. 
Smilla, 37 year old daughter of a female Inuit hunter and a rich Danish physician lives alone in an apartment complex. One of the neighbours is an alcoholic. That one has a son called Isaiah. She forms a friendship with him. Suddenly Isaiah dies. The police explains it as an accident, the boy falling from the roof. However, due to his marks in the snow on the roof and some other facts, Smilla does not believe in an accident. She investigates, later together with another neighbour, called Peter. He is a mechanic. Whatsoever, there is some kind of conspiracy and ... the rest you have to read for yourself.
As Galina from Chez Maximka and I myself are still doing the ReadCookEat challenge, it is no wonder I also kept an eye on the food in the book apart from obviously following the real plot.
While I would have loved to go for a raspberry cake I decided for this ...

In one scene in the book the mechanic, Peter, is preparing a fish soup for Smilla and himself. The description of the ingredients and the preparation is quite detailed so I tried to reproduce it, although I stuck to the ingredients I could get more easily ... eh ... for what was in that one shop, when I went shopping for the dish.

Ingredients:
Splash of olive oil
1 onion
2 carrots
1 small bulb of fennel
1 leek
Various items of fish (I had: gilthead bream, haddock, salmon)
Hand full of prawns
Rice
2 Star anise
1 tsp. cardamom
2 tbsp. sour cream
Juice of half an orange
Salt and pepper

Method:
I prepared the rice in the usual way with the star anise and the cardamom. I did this in a separate pan. You know, double amount of water, bring to boil, cover, reduce heat to minimum or turn off and let it work for 20 minutes. Anyway, you may have a different method or even a rice cooker. Feel free to do as yo are accustomed to do.

Than start with a large pan to do the soup. Give a splash of olive oil to the pan, which you put on low to medium heat. Chop up your onion and throw it into the pan.
Afterwards go for the carrots. Peel, chop up and off to the pan. Now the fennel and finally the leek. Give the vegetables a good time in the pan to soften them a bit and to release some flavour, maybe 20 minutes or more. Just make sure, you don't burn anything.
In between season the whole thing with salt and pepper and Pour in 1,5 litre or water. All this you bring to the boil and let simmer for 10 minutes.

It's not called fish soup for no reason. Therefore we need some fish in the pan. If you feel you just want to go ahead as I did (with little knowledge about fish) just use whole fish like I did with head, fin and bones and all (as was done in the book as well). However, that might get a bit messy, for later you don't want the head, fins and bones in the finished soup. For your convenience use fillets of fish. That will make your life easier, but you might have less flavour, if you can notice. Just one more thing, you don't want to have the scales of the fish anywhere near your pan. That, of course, if you have a good fishmonger should be no problem at all. I don't have ... a good fishmonger.
Fine, you put your pieces of fish into the pan, pushing it under the liquid and let the fish boil together with the rest for 10 minutes. If you need to remove heads, fins and bones afterwards ... your problem. 
Once all the undesirable parts are removed, add the prawns and cook them for another two minutes. After that you can finish the soup of with the sour cream and the orange juice.

Serve the soup together with the rice and if you like some bread as well.
That was one of the more expensive dishes, for you know, fish isn't that cheap. However, I got a good quality meal and finally some more fish for my health and a more balanced diet. Apart from that, there are some leftovers for another day ... or maybe too.
While eating I still discovered some fishbones in the soup - maybe that's why I don't have fish too often.
Whatever I say, I enjoyed the fish soup and am glad I have some more for the weekend.
Now that's something lovely for ReadCookEat.

Anyway, it wouldn't have been my fault, if the soup would have been terrible, for I followed most of the time Peter Høeg's description.

If it happens to be the case you have been reading something or are still doing so and you find any connection with food in that book and find the power to do a dish, then I see no reason, why you should not join ReadCookEat this month ...

Click here to go to the Link-up

Bills Sydney Food - Prawn and Chilli Linguine

I have a dream, again and again. I run through the jungle and someone or something is hunting me. I run and run as fast as I can, which is surprisingly fast in that dream. The thing nearly gets me, it's freaking close. Suddenly I come to the edge of the cliff, which is dropping quite a way down. I just jump and ... wake up.
Oops, no, really, I'm not having that dream. I'd rather say that is the beginning of Star Trek - Into Darkness.
My dream is slightly different. It's there since school and it has to do with Australia. I dream of moving there or at least visiting there once. The latter seems more realistic. 
Anyway, that's also why I tend to buy books about Australia, watch Australian movies or TV series and lately above that buy cookbooks.
One of the latest example is Bills Sydney Food by Bill Granger. After all it would be nice to visit Sydney. Here an example of what came from it ...

Pad Tua Ngorg - Fried Bean Sprouts

WARNING!!!

Somehow I am in a bad mood today!

At times things can really make you freak out. Don’t know!?!

What now? Slamming doors? Breaking plates and glasses? Kicking at things? Knocking the head against the wall again and again? Or worse … ?

NO! I don’t think so! It’s not worth it and for sure I would be going to regret it (replacing all the broken things and not even thinking about the headache from meeting the wall …)!

Let’s rather go to the kitchen and cook something nice!

Already before (that is before the bad mood hit me) I had decided to go for Thai food (I still had some leftover bean sprouts). That’s why I’m having Pad Tua Ngorg today.

What you don’t understand? OK, fine: fried bean sprouts (you could have guessed that as well).

“When you eat bamboo shoots, think of the man, who planted them.” This is what a Chinese proverb says. Oh, well, Chinese? We are going to cook Thai. Anyway, bamboo shoots aren’t featured here either.

Fine! Something else: “It is against God’s will to eat a delicious meal quickly.” That’s what Chang Ch’ao said. Hm, sorry, he is, eh, was Chinese also! However, that would at least be fitting.

Wait, wait, one more! “Never eat yellow snow!” Sorry again! That’s what an Innuit mother would say to her children.

Never mind! Forget all the things I mentioned so far!

Rather we are going to steam some rice, 250 g to be exactly. First wash it and then bring it with 600 ml of water to boil. Only make sure the pot is large enough … which I didn’t do (adding only sligthly to the irritation …). I try to behave – no worries! Boil it for three minutes, turn down the heat to lowest possible, cover, leave for 20 minutes, remove from heat and leave to rest for 10 minutes – voilà!

By the way, steamed rice you would call Kaau Sue.

Here now the details for the fried bean sprouts (OK, I didn’t have that many bean sprouts available).

Ingredients:

300 g bean sprouts (which I obviously didn’t use – no worries)

100 g lean pork

100 g peeled prawns

Oil for frying

4 cloves of garlic – chopped

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Half a teaspoon (no, don’t break the spoon – forget it) of sugar

pepper

Preparation:

Wash your bean sprouts (no matter how many you are using). Did I mention, they are high in protein as well. Just a side sort – don’t get distracted.

Cut your (lean) pork into stripes. If you like, you can make an effort to cut it really thin.

Heat up the oil and fry the garlic a while – that is until golden (or so). Add the pork – all the time stirring (I like stirring things up sometimes! :-) Oh, was that a smile? I guess mood is already improving! Good!). When the meat is cooked through, add the prawns – stirring – a few seconds – stirring – season with sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce, and pepper, pepper, pepper, pepper … OK, enough! Throw in some chillies cut in rings, if you like.

Now the main characters (if you have enough) come: the bean sprouts. Keep stirring for another 3 minutes.

Should it be the case that you see any chance of doing something in between before the rice is finished, you can whip up a Yam Tdääng Gwaa (cucumber salad) – only if you see a chance, of course.

Plate it all up!

Or some more?

Or with some soy sauce?

Did you like it? Anyone for seconds? Yep, I go for it!

That’s it. There is still some rice left. I’m nice (contrary to how it may have appeared at the outset) and share a bit of it with Lucy, who takes it happily.

Still there is rice left!

Here comes an attempt to build a rice tower …

… sadly it didn’t last long enough to be captured on photo.

Nevertheless, the mood has improved greatly! Just to make sure that things are fine, I add some chocolate …

A table full of tapas

Care for a snack? Why not! Muy bien! Tapas son muy populares en España. Pero ... not everyone can be there or has a tapas bar nearby.
Anyway, as is the case with most things, you can manage at home. That is of course only, if you are willing to try. I was today! Nothing better to do. However, eating is a good reason to be active cooking and preparing food in the kitchen.

Now it happens to be that I have this cookbook about tapas from Parragon Books Ltd. Somehow I was in the mood today for some extensive testing. There are quite some tasty tapas recipes in this book to satisfy your desire for these little Spanish snacks.
So I flipped through the book, pondering on what to try today - of course limited to the resources available to me at home.
Starting with the cheating way, I opened a glass of olives stuffed with garlic. That would do for starters.

Of course, this has little to do with cooking. Well, then let's try something else, like roasted peppers with honey and almonds.

Put some red peppers in the oven and roast them until they blacken. Put them in a bowl and cover with cling film for several minutes so that you can remove the skin. Cut it into bit size pieces and put them in a bowl. 
In a pan heat up some olive oil and put in some slice garlic at low heat for 5 minutes. Then had some sliced almonds, honey, and sherry vinegar. Heat up and then put to the peppers and mix well.
Or what about some salted paprika almonds.

When thinking of Spain, what else comes to your mind? Jamon Serrano might be something foodwise. Have it with some dressed (orange, olive oil, salt, pepper) rocket leaves.

Something I enjoyed very much, apart from the just mentioned Jamon Serrano with rocket, is fried dates filled with chorizo and wrapped in bacon.

  

OK, they don't look all that impressive, but they taste sweet and delicious and ... you want more. It was only for safety reasons that I made just for.

So, get some dates. Put a bit of chorizo where the stone of the date used to be, wrap a piece of bacon around it. Have some flour, beaten egg, and bread crumbs ready to coat the dates. Fry them with sufficient oil for about four minutes and enjoy them ... delish ... hot!

Good! The night isn't over yet. 

You can and should make use of chorizo also in other ways - fried with fresh herbs. The recipe didn't state, though what herbs. I used what I had: chives, oregano, thyme, and mint. Somehow in nearly all of the recipes olive oil and garlic was involved. There was still a recipe for having the chorizo with red wine. The downside was, leaving it 8 hours to work, obviously no time for that - have to postpone it to some other day in the future.

As stated in the tapas book, tomato bread is one of the favourites in Spain, especially in the Barcelona region (which is very nice actually as I experienced it myself). It reminds me a bit of the Italian bruschetta and somehow is prepared in a similar way. You can toast the bread and rub it with garlic, splash olive oil on it and then rub it with a tomato half. If you like you can put some Jamon Serrano and capers on it.

One of my favourites are also garlic prawns. Heat some olive oil in a pan and add some chopped garlic and one or two dried chillies. Then there come the prawns. Hopefully they are dry, so that you can fry them and you don't end up cooking them.
In the end I had about ten different tapas. You can enjoy a lot of different things without getting to much stuffed. There are still more delicious recipe to discover, when it comes to tapas.
They are also very good when you are together with a group at a table as you can go along and nibble here and there once in a while without having the "pressure" of finishing a whole big meal. It's to encourage conversation.
In some countries they have a lot of clever ideas on enjoying food. Spain is always a pleasant stop in that regard. If you like you can enjoy some wine or sherry along it.
What is your favourite tapa?
Muchas gracias por tu visita! Hasta la proxima vez!

Japan: o-konomi yaki

Some days ago I found my old notebook - the kind with paper, where you need a pen to make entries. In this very book, the last entry was from August 1995. Some things (I'm not going to reveal the whole content of that book) written in it were recipes I liked back then and wanted to keep. One of this was a Japanese recipe: お好み焼き (o-konomi yaki). This is a savoury pancake with cabbage. The name is derived from a Japanese word meaning "what you like". So, whatever you like goes on it (although there are certain things I would never dare to recommend).
Here we are then, about to cook something Japanese. To get myself in the mood I put a CD on with some Japanese music.

That was all I had: A CD from Vivian Hsu.

Together with the pancake I want to prepare a miso soup.

A bit of cutting to start with. Then ... OK ... here is the pancake recipe ...

O-konomi yaki


Ingredients:
100 g flour
1 egg (preferably from a happy chicken - at least until someone stole her egg)
1 handful of cut cabbage
50 g prawns
1 spring onion (cut lengthwise)
1 clove of garlic (peeled)
1 thumb sized piece of ginger
Salt
1 stock cube (chicken, vegetable, or whatever)
water
vegetable oil for frying
seaweed, Worcestershire sauce (optional)


Method:
First of all mix the flour, a pinch of salt, the (happy) egg and a bit of water to a "gooey"
batter.
Heat up the oil in a medium sized pan.
Then add the cabbage and incorporate well. If the batter is too gooey, just add a bit more water to get the desired texture.
When the oil is hot enough you can add half of the batter to the pan and tilt the pan so that the batter covers the bottom of the pan.
Get your prawns, spring onion, garlic, and ginger ready. Put the prawns and the spring onion on the already frying batter. Then grate the garlic and ginger on top, but don't grate too vigorously ... or otherwise you grate your fingers as well.
Cover it all up with the remaining batter and fry nicely and golden from both sides.

Once the pancake is done, you can serve it with seaweed (Reminds me of a stupid joke: Why did the lobster blush? Because the sea weed.) and Worcestershire sauce.

Then "dig in"! Maybe together with a miso soup. Well, how can you it this with chopsticks? Try, and find out ...
To finish this whole meal of, a small cup of green tea.

But don't add milk to the tea. At least that is what it said on the package.
I hope you like o-konomi yaki ... I do. Instead of using prawns - as I already mentioned at the outset - you can use many different other things, like beef, pork or go for a vegetarian version with some nice vegetables like carrots or use cheese or ... what you like (However, I don't take any responsibility if it isn't edible anymore!).

Some day I will try a traditional Japanese breakfast ...