WWDH - Pickled Carrot

It's Wednesday with Donna Hay, and this week Sarah has chosen pickled carrot from Donna's website.

This was pretty simple to make, but I was glad I had my mandolin to chop the carrots.  I didn't have plain rice vinegar so I used black vinegar, and it seemed OK to me.

I ate these with Jamie's Sticky Chicken Chinese Noodles, and it made the perfect accompaniment.

To see what Sarah, Margaret and Chaya thought of their pickles, visit their websites.

Lady Moustache, Yarraville

On Sunday morning, I stepped out with friends old and new for brunch at Lady Moustache in Yarraville.  It was a very hot morning, so it was a relief to step into the air conditioning, which although struggling, did the job. 

We were taken upstairs to the room pictured at the top of this post as we had a large party, including two children.  The wooden stairs were a little narrow, but anyone fit and able-bodied can easily get up there.  It was just like stepping into Nana's living room, with eclectic tables and chairs (including two black vinyl arm chairs that you can rotate 360 degrees in), eccentric art work and retro lamps. The room was child-friendly, with a range of toys, including a "lady moustache" on a stick.

Straight up, I ordered a skinny flat white from our friendly hipster waiter:

I just loved the crockery, all of which had a strong 70's vibe.  It took me back!  Even the sugar was in a 70's stoneware  pot.

For the main event, I went to the specials board, which boasted a breakfast burrito:

 
This burrito was just as good as it sounded - a soft tortilla encasing scrambled egg and tomato salsa, with black beans and guacamole on the side.  The guacamole cut through the heaviness of the eggs, and the combination was a match made in heaven.

My friend Steve is a cereal man, and ordered the toasted muesli with yoghurt and fresh fruit:

 
He liked it well enough, although he is more of a bircher muesli fan.

Craig ordered this sensational salmon omelette with asparagus:

Craig enjoyed this very much, and the little girl in our party happily munched on a piece of the fresh green asparagus.

I really enjoyed our Lady Moustache experience.  The 70's vibe, the friendly service and the food were all terrific.  When they forgot to bring up a late coffee order by one of our party, they gave him the coffee as a takeaway on the house - a nice touch.

 

Lady Moustache

84 Gamon St 

Yarraville, VIC 3013
Ph: 03 9396 1916

Sticky Chicken Chinese Noodles

When the Save with Jamie book came out just before Christmas, and well before the launch of the accompanying TV show here in Australia, I was adamant I was not buying yet another Jamie book.  I love Jamie's approach to cooking in that he doesn't try to be too fancy, and has the aim of getting people to get into their kitchens and cook instead of buying take-away or eating out all the time.  He has shown me some techniques that I use all the time eg separating eggs using your hands, smashing garlic with the back of a knife to help peel and crush it, and making a really simple stir fry sauce that I make off the top of my head.  However, I was not convinced that Jamie deserved more shelf space in my house.

Then the TV show hit our screens, and he got me again!  The food that he made looked so amazing that I went and bought the book after episode 2.  I liked that he showed how you could turn a roast into umpteen different things using the leftovers - and the little pork buns in episode 2 had my mouth watering and looked so simple.  I was sold.  I am not sure that the savings information works quite so well here, as things are notoriously expensive, but the recipes themselves are tasty and easy, making them worthy just for that reason.

For a group, I had to make pickled carrot, so I wanted an Asian dish to go with it.   While Save with Jamie is fresh on the bookshelf, I thumbed through it for an appropriate recipe.  My eyes alighted on Sticky Chicken Chinese Noodles on p102, and I was away. 

This dish involves a bit of vegetable chopping, but all up doesn't take long.  I made this dish on a stinking hot (41 degree Celsius) day when I was understandably really tired, and while keeping half an eye on the TV, yet still finished making it in around the  45 minutes quoted (which includes time to "marinade" the chicken, which you could skip if you wanted to and save another 15 minutes).

Because of the crazy weather here, it seems that pineapple crops have been affected, so I couldn't buy pineapple rings.  Instead, I bought the only tin of pineapple left in the supermarket, being a tin of crushed pineapple.  I am sure it did the trick flavour-wise, despite having a textural difference.  I used thin hokkien noodles (egg noodles) instead of rice noodles because I already had them in the pantry, and I just plum forgot to use the lime juice.  I also could not buy black beans for love or money, so I used a tin of red kidney beans that I already had instead.  No matter - I enjoyed the resulting dish, although I didn't love it. 

The flavour of the vegetables and noodles is rather unusual, as the stir fry sauce used with the noodles and vegetables is comprised of pineapple pieces, pineapple juice and soy sauce, giving a "sweet and sour" effect.    I did love the Chinese five spice and honey glazed chicken, and the pan-fried beans were a revelation.  I would possibly make this again if the mood took me, and of course, the individual components of the dish could be made separately with other items.

As I mentioned earlier, this dish is really easy to make.  You take four chicken thighs (free of skin and bone), and coat them with a dusting of Chinese five spice powder, salt and pepper.  You let that sit for 15 minutes to let the flavours get into the chicken, and in the meantime, you can chop the veges.

The chicken is subsequently pan fried in a little oil, and a tablespoon of honey is drizzled over it in the last minute or so of cooking time to glaze the chicken.  The chicken is then taken out of the pan and set aside.

Cook your rice noodles in accordance with the instructions.  (I just used a small packet of thin hokkien noodles soaked in boiling water for a minute to separate them.)

Drain a 400g tin of black beans, and mix them with a teaspoon of Chinese five spice powder and a little olive oil.  Pan fry them until they go crispy and burst from their skins.

Mix together a 227g can of pineapple rings that have been cubed, together with their juice, and a tablespoon each of soy sauce and white wine vinegar.  Mix in a tablespoon of cornflour and set aside.

Chop up finely 2 cloves of garlic, an onion, half a wombok and a carrot.  Pan fry these in a little oil for around two minutes, then add the drained noodles and the pineapple sauce, and cook until the vegetables are well coated, then remove from the heat. 

Plate up so that everyone gets some of everything and add a squeeze of lime - serves 4.

Banana Bread

While I was staying with my mother last week, we ended up with a bunch of overripe bananas that Mum was going to throw out.  I decided to rescue three out of four of them by making banana bread from this recipe.   Although the recipe only calls for two bananas, my bananas were smallish, so the additional banana did not mess with the balance of ingredients.

A slice of this:
 

served warm with butter was delightful.  Unfortunately, as is their way, my family wasted most of it, Mum claiming she doesn't like banana bread and my brother being more interested in store bought delights, but that doesn't take away from the fact that this was damn fine banana bread; I can't help it that my family are ultra-fussy.

If you have a couple of bananas that are beyond redemption for eating, consider this banana bread recipe - it will save on food wastage, and you will have yourself a delicious breakfast or anytime treat.

FFWD - Boeuf a la Ficelle

Et maintenant le voyage, a la supermarche.
Le pamplemousse!
Ananas!Jus d'orange, boeuf, soup du jour,
Le camembert, Jacque Cousteau,
Baguette, mais oui!

 

Foux Du Fa Fa, Flight of the Conchords

 

The name of this week's French Fridays with Dorie dish made me automatically think of Foux Du Fa Fa by Flight of the Conchords.  You can see the video clip of this song, featuring random French words thrown together as the Conchords try to impress two girls,  here.  Take a look, it's really cute.  And yes, in the supermarket, they throw some boeuf into the trolley.

The English translation of this week's dish is beef on a string - as with most of the French language, the English translation is far more prosaic.  And as you can see, it is literally beef on a string:

 

I lucked in because my beef roast was already strung together, so I just had to add a string going the other way to lift it out of the pot with.  The beef was also surprisingly not as expensive as I had thought - it was $16 for a 700g roast, which is not exactly cheap, but it won't break the bank either.   

 

On the other hand, if I had made the bullion, the oxtail would have cost a fortune.  Oxtail has crossed over from scraps to gourmet food here,  with a price to match.  I didn't have the time to make the bullion anyway, and Campbell's beef stock served me well.

 

There was lots of vege preparation for this recipe - potatoes, turnips, carrots, shallots, celery and - that's right, there was supposed to be leeks, but in my excitement, I bought fennel instead by accident, so that is what I used.  

 

The finished dish was really delicious - poached beef doesn't sound appetising, but it was really good.  I poached mine more to the "well done" end of the spectrum.  I also topped my beef with some homemade pepper sauce.

 

To see what the other Doristas thought of beef on a string, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website.   

Owl Cake for Waitangi Day

Happy Waitangi Day to everyone in New Zealand (across the ditch)!  For the uninitiated, Waitangi Day marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 between the Maori people and the British.

To celebrate, I have made an owl-shaped cake - a tribute to the New Zealand native owl, the morepork or ruru.  The catch was that the cake couldn't be too difficult as I don't have time to faff about during the working week, and it had to use ingredients that I had on hand.

After a quick Google search, I made a cake decorated using a combination of this idea and this idea. I also used the owl template from Sew White shown in the video.

For the base cake, I used a chocolate cake recipe from p42 of  The Country Show Cookbook by Jan Gibson from the Cumnock Show. I liked it because it didn't use many ingredients, it uses cocoa instead of expensive chocolate, and a benefit I didn't know when I started, it bakes up nice and sturdy so that it is easy to cut into a shape, such as this owl:

To make this cake, you will need:

125g butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup self raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease and line a 20cm square cake tin.

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy and light.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between additions.  Sift the flour and cocoa together.  Add the dry ingredients to the batter alternately with the milk mixed with the vanilla, starting and finishing with the dry ingredients and combining well between each addition.

Pour the batter into your prepared cake tin and bake for 30-35 minutes or until cooked through.  Allow the cake to cool in the tin for around 10 minutes before unmoulding onto a wire rack to cool completely.  (I recommend refrigerating it if you want to cut out a shape to firm up the crumb.)

After the cake has cooled, you can cut out the owl using the template.  Instead of ganache, I used chocolate fudge icing from the Crabapple Bakery Cookbook (recipe here).  I only made half of the published recipe and then still had heaps left over.

To make the eyes and feathers, I used white and dark choc bits and white chocolate melts.  For the beak and feet, I cut the shapes out freehand from a strawberry strap.

Even though this cake was super easy to make, I think it is really effective  and so cute!

WWDH - Pepper Sauce

This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay recipe was chosen by Chaya.  She selected Pepper Sauce from Modern Classics I.  This was a flexible recipe because once made, you can use the sauce however you like.

The sauce itself is very simple to make - beef stock, cream and pepper are boiled up together.  My sauce didn't thicken much, maybe because I used light cream.  That didn't matter - it's sauce, it pours, it flavours, and that's all that matters.

You can't see it very well, but I poured some sauce over my boeuf a la ficelle: 

Nice huh?

To see what Chaya, Sarah and Margaret thought of this recipe, visit their websites.