Discuss Jean Rhys' treatment of personal cultural dislocation in a postcolonial context in Wide Sargasso Sea.

Now remember the sauce verte? It looked pretty gross, and I had no idea of when we would eat it. But, I made it on Sunday afternoon, went to work on Sunday night, and came back to discover that my parents had eaten half of it on bread, and were raving about it! Cool! Yesterday afternoon, Mum surprised me with a packet of chips and a latté. (You can see the leftover gingered chicken salad in the background). We ate the chips with the sauce verte and it was deelicious. It tastes sharp and vinegary like a salsa verde, but with the artery-thickening power of mayonnaise. You really can't go wrong.


chips, coffee, sauce verte

Today, before I get properly stuck into my literature essay (hence the weird title of this post), I got through a couple more recipes.

389. Chicory and Mustard Salad (Dinner)

Chicory is out of season at the moment, so I used witlof. (I always used these 2 terms interchangeably; I didn't realise they were 2 different things, but according to the dude at Leo's, they are).

The dressing is Dijon mustard, crème fraîche, cider vinegar and salt, whisked to a thick emulsified dressing with olive oil.


dressing

Then simply toss the dressing through the leaves and you're done.


chicory mustard salad

390. Mushroom crostini (Dinner)

This recipe looks a lot fancier than it really is. The topping for the little crunchy bread rounds simply consists of chopped thyme, garlic and mushrooms, cooked until soft, to which you add grated parmesan. A light sprinkling of chopped parsley completes them. Easy.


mushroom crostini

I'm a bit stressed at the moment with essays, finishing off the project and other not-quite-related antipodean dramas, so don't have much of an appetite (yes, I'm shocked too). However, the mushroom crostini smell really, really good, and I'd be happy to pull them out at a dinner party. The salad looks pretty good too - I'll get my mum to do a taste-test for me later on.

Now I'm back to immerse myself in the world of 1830's Jamaica. Yah man.

Happy Mother's Day / Happy Birthday Dad!

Dad's birthday was on Saturday. Mother's Day is today. Dinner tonight just had to be special.

360. Sole with Chanterelles (Fast Food)
361. Apple Butterscotch Tart (Weekend Lunch)

The justification behind putting these 2 recipes together is that Dad loves apple pie, and Mum loves mushrooms. The sole only takes about 20 minutes in total, so I started by making the tart.
This tart has pastry on the bottom, then a layer of thinly sliced apples (I used granny smith), then a butterscotch paste on top. Nigella stipulates ordinary unsweetened shortcrust pastry, which is a doddle to make. The butterscotch paste contains light muscovado sugar, flour, eggs and cream, and looks like this...


walnut-coloured paste

Given the occasion, I went for dinky presentation and used these super-cute heart-shaped pie tins that my aunt gave me for my birthday.


pastry with apples


w paste

They need to be baked for about 30 minutes in total, which gave me just enough time to make the fish.

Now, even though the recipe is called "sole with chanterelles", I could find neither sole nor chanterelles. When I went to Prahran market on Friday, I went to Damien Pike's wonderful mushroom stall, and got these pine mushrooms, which are yellow like chanterelles. The lovely guy running the stall (which I'm pretty sure was Mr. Pike himself) said they'd intensify in colour when cooked and be lovely with fish. FYI, chanterelles are only available in Australia in August, imported from Scotland. Mr. Pike at the stall says they're his favourite kind of mushrooms in the whole world.

But back to the pine mushrooms.


ooh mushrooms!

You have to cook the mushrooms down in a lot of butter, remove them to a plate, and cook the fish fillets in the mushroomy butter. Another substitution, I used flake instead of sole because I couldn't find sole at Box Hill at 5:45 on a Sunday afternoon. I figured it didn't matter as long as the fish was white, to contrast with the mushrooms.

So, when the fish is cooked, you remove it to a plate, and return the mushrooms to the pan, sizzling it down with white wine and a squeeze of lemon. The mushrooms and their delicious thick yellow sauce go on top of the fish, with parsley to garnish.


Flake with pine mushrooms

This dish was delicious! I really can't fault the mixture of flavourful mushrooms, a buttery brown and yellow sauce and fish. It requires a bit of specialised shopping, but it's just so easy and fast to make! It simply must be tried.

Here are the little tartlets, fresh out of the oven. One thing I noticed was that even though the filling was cooked, the pastry wasn't completely cooked. I had to cover them with foil and put them back in the oven until the pastry was ready. I'm not sure if this is because of the individual tins, but at any rate, I'd definitely blind-bake them next time.


baked pies


apple pies - this was Dad's idea for presentation. Cute, huh?


One heart, with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream

These pies were delightfully cute, adorable even. Despite the name, they weren't sweet at all. Add more sugar if you want it to be properly sweet and butterscotch-like, although I found that vanilla ice-cream added sufficient sweetness.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Smashing Mushrooms

Tonight, mum and I were home alone for dinner together, so it was time to pull something storecupboard, yet special, out of the One & Two chapter. Actually, I'm quite in the mood for luxury - I'm in the midst of writing a marketing assignment on Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), which is the world's largest luxury products group. They control such fabulous brands as Louis Vuitton, TAG Heuer, Fendi, Cloudy Bay, Emilio Pucci, Kenzo, Chateau d'Yquem, Veuve Cliquot, Marc Jacobs and so on. So whilst I'm only dreaming about products that are most certainly out of my reach (unless I become maitresse to the CEO, that Bernard Arnault guy... don't laugh, it could happen!), at least my dinner had a touch of luxury to it.

155. Chicken with Morels (One & Two)

This is the ingredient that makes it luxurious - the morels. I got them a couple of months ago, at the post-apocalyptic price of $18.60 for 15 grams, at The Essential Ingredient.



Here they are, aren't they cute in their little plastic container? (By the way, I'm not a total unco, I took the photo in focus, but the blogger photo upload program resizes pictures, thus fuzzing this one up. But it's ok, you get the gist of it). Yeah, so the container is cute, until you try to open the bugger - it was tight as anything! I tried teatowels, rubber gloves, and hot water to try and open it, but it was staying firmly shut.

So in frustration, I just turned it over and (gently, yet passionately) whacked it with a pestle.


Smashed open

I then very, very carefully picked out all the bits of plastic, and put the morels in a jug, as per the recipe.


Morels in a jug - they look like slugs, huh?

You have to soak these in hot water for about thirty minutes before using them. In the meantime, the recipe instructs you to brown the skin of the chicken thigh pieces, and leave them aside on a plate. Then you cook onion and garlic in the same pot, and add the drained morels, chicken pieces, Marsala and the morel soaking liquid, to which you add 1/3 mushroom stock cube. Let it simmer until cooked, remove the chicken, and boil down the sauce to a suitable consistency. Then, add a spoon of mascarpone (more luxury, see), stir it in. Serve the chicken with the sauce and morels poured over, and sprinkled with parsley. We had it with rice, and wedges of iceberg lettuce (Nigella says to eat it with "a pale, crisp and astringent green salad").


Chicken with Morels


Chicken with Morels, Salad, Rice

We absolutely loved it. My mum adores mushrooms, and I adore marsala (what self-respecting Nigella-fan doesn't?). I'd never had morels before, but I thought they were very nice - not as strongly flavoured as porcini or shiitake, but with their own delicious, mushroom flavour, and a soft but non-sluglike texture. The dish as a whole was quite rich, but the plain steamed rice and salad counterbalance this. The chicken thighs were quite big, so we managed to save one for my dad to try as well.

But of course, as much as she loved them, I didn't actually tell Mum how much the mushrooms cost. I didn't want to ruin her dinner. Don't forget, she's the one who couldn't bring herself to spend $8.50 for six passionfruit. I guess this means I should also give up hope of her buying me a bottle of Veuve Cliquot for our next dinner party...

Mushroom Udon Soup

Did anyone else notice how bloody cold it was today? Apparently tomorrow it's going to be even worse. And of course, I decided to wear a skirt and heels to uni today, with a pathetically thin coat. Silly, silly, silly. All I could think of all day was coming home to a nice hot bowl of soup...

87. Mushroom Udon Soup

I've actually been putting off making this one, delicious as it sounds, because Nigella prefaces the recipe by saying that it's "the sort of supper I might make myself to get back on track if I've gone out and had pig's trotter - fat, cartilage and all - with mashed potato for lunch". This made me think that the soup would be too light for a proper meal, and would ultimately result in us raiding the snack cupboard for biscuits and chips later in the night.

How wrong I was. It's a Nigella recipe, there's no way in hell it wouldn't fill you up. We were all very satisfied, and warmed through and through. I just remembered, actually, the last time I made a noodle soup was for dinner after wearing a skirt out on a 15 degree day. Hah.

It tasted fantastic - the meaty mushrooms, the slippery noodles, the salty soup... and, it was simplicity itself to make - it only took about 20 minutes in total. The soup base is a mix of the dried shitake mushroom soaking water mixed with dashi powder, some soy sauce and sesame oil. Then you chuck in the mushrooms and udon noodles, and boil it until cooked. Sprinkle with coriander and nanami togarashi. Easy.


Fancy some slurping?

Low-Fat August: Day 2

Today's low-fat eating went well... (butter-free toast for breakfast, a salad and felafel roll for lunch, with fruit, coffee and yogurt in-between)... up until the time I was cooking dinner, totally famished, and inhaled two pieces of (again, butter-free) raisin toast. Now, I know that raisin toast isn't high in fat, but the fact that I let myself get almost gastric-pain-inducingly-hungry before dinner shows that I didn't space out my meals appropriately. Bad Sarah.

74. Braised Dried Shiitake Mushrooms with Soba Noodles (Low-Fat)

I totally love soba, and could eat them every day. Nigella's recipe says to cook the noodles according to packet instructions - not very helpful if you can't read Japanese. Lucky for me, though, that I do speak Japanese (yup, I'm doing honours-level Japanese at uni, thank-you very much), so I can read the packet. However, irregardless your ability to read them, I would still advise that you totally ignore the packet instructions, and go with this fail-safe method I skived from a Japanese cookery book. There is nothing in this world that is worse than a limp noodle.

Put water on the heat, and when it comes to the boil, add the noodles. When it comes to the boil again, pour in a cup of cold water. Let it boil again, then pour in a second cup of cold water. Once it boils again (the fourth time), drain the noodles and rinse with cold water. Easy peasy Japaneesy!

To braise the mushrooms, you have to soak them in hot water for half an hour, then stir fry them in a little oil, before pouring over the soaking water, some soy sauce, mirin and sake, and letting it simmer away until the liquid is evaporated.


Mushrooms Braising

I did screw it up a bit though - you're supposed to use two-thirds of the soy sauce for the mushrooms, and pour the remaining one-third over the soba at the end. Silly me was in a hunger-induced hurry, and poured all the soy on the mushrooms without realising. This meant that the noodles were bland, but the mushrooms were uber-salty. Like, so salty I couldn't feel my tongue anymore. My dad didn't seem to mind them though. We cut up the mushrooms into little pieces on the plate so that there wouldn't be such a huge salty hit with each mouthful. And anyway, they contrasted well against the noodles.

Nigella only suggests sprinkling over chopped coriander, but I felt that the dish was just crying out for some spring onions and nanami togarashi (Japanese 7-spice chilli pepper). I put the spring onions on the side, as my dad doesn't like them, and gave my mum extra coriander, as she loves it.


Capacious Noodles

I think this is an excellent meal for those trying to reduce their fat intake without feeling deprived. The noodles are filling, and the mushrooms are meatily substantial. I'm stuffed! According to Nigella, eating food with strong tastes (like super-salty mushrooms) makes you feel fuller for longer. If that's true, I'm gonna be full for a long while...

Happy Birthday Mum!

SARAH'S MOTHER'S BIRTHDAY DINNER FOR 11

Pea and Garlic Crostini
Roast Pepper with Green Olive Paste Crostini
Onion Tart with Green Salad and Sourdough Baguette
Roast Rockling, Pumpkin Purée and Mixed Mushrooms
A Moorish Cake

This is the birthday dinner I made for my mum. I spread out the workload over two days. Yesterday I made the cake, prepared the pastry and onions for the tart, roasted the pumpkin, and roasted the garlic for the pea crostini. And today, I did the rest!

48. Onion Tart
49. Rich Shortcrust (Basics etc.)

The first thing I did for this was make the pastry, following Nigella’s method in the Basics etc. chapter for rich shortcrust pastry. There’s really not that much to say about the pastry-making process, except that Nigella’s method is really stress free. (Although to be perfectly honest, sorry, I’ve never found making pastry to be intimidating, and I’m not exactly sure what all the fuss is about. Maybe I’ve just been very lucky and always come across very well written recipes, with clearly set-out instructions.) Ooh, but I did cut my finger opening the plastic crème fraiche tub.

Now, the onions. They’re sliced very finely and cooked to a fine brown mush. When you pour some Marsala over and let it bubble away, the smell is amazing.


Delicious Tangle of Onions

So, if you do this the night before, on the day itself, all you have to do is blind bake the case, add the onions, pour over a mixture of eggs and crème fraiche, and bake again. Easy! For blind-baking, I used an old packet of lentils which I bought a few years ago and never used.

50. Pumpkin Purée

The recipe says to wrap each piece of pumpkin, buttered, in foil and bake them. I had wrapped about half my pumpkin pieces when I ran out of foil. Disaster! But luckily we had some plastic Glad Oven Bags, so I put the rest of the pumpkin in them. I’d never used those bags before, but it says they’re ovenproof on the packet. They were fine, better than the foil, in fact.


Pumpkin in Glad Oven Bag. (Actually, it's butternut squash, because I'm too uncoordinated to chop up a large pumpkin.)

Once they’re cooked, you scrape the flesh out and beat it with a wooden spoon. I cooked the pumpkin last night, puréed it this morning, and re-heated it just before we ate it.

51. Mixed mushrooms

I cooked these this morning, and reheated just before serving. It’s a mixture of porcini, button, Swiss brown, shitake and field mushrooms, cooked in butter, with garlic, shallots and sherry. (I have no idea where to find chanterelles or trompettes de mort, despite a lengthy Google-search last week!)


Look at this enormous field mushroom in my hand!

After cooking it, it looked like an intensely-flavoured ugly black sludge, which was quite worrying, as I wasn’t sure how fussy my parents’ friends were. Or if they even liked mushrooms for that matter. Breathe, Sarah, breathe!

52. Pea and Garlic Crostini

All the crostini recipes (there are eight) involve thinly sliced, oiled-dabbed slices of baguette, which are toasted in the oven and then covered with a topping. My bread of choice was sourdough baguette from Laurent (bought yesterday), which I transformed into crostini at about 6pm (guests arriving at 7:30pm).

This filling is sorta like the upmarket mushy peas. But this one has oven-roasted garlic (done last night, with the pumpkin) in it. How I love peas!


Pea & Garlic Crostini – how very GREEN... it's a Miss Sixty shirt in crostini-form

53. Roast Pepper with Green Olive Paste Crostini

I chose this because my mum loves roast capsicum (aka peppers). And it’s supposed to be easy.(Nigella says to use store-bought roasted peppers and olive paste). However, I enjoy roasting peppers, so I did them myself. Furthermore, I couldn’t find any olive paste at Coles! I’ve since learnt that you can get it at Harrods, in London. Useful. It is my dream one day to be have the means to do all my food shopping at the Harrods Food Hall. But for now, I’ve got Coles Box Hill to deal with. What I could find, however, were these tins of green olives stuffed with anchovies, made by Carbonell. So I bought a couple of them, drained them and whizzed them up with a few teaspoons of crème fraiche (thus undercutting the sharp saltiness), to approximate what I imagine to be green olive paste. It looked khaki, and tasted fabulous.


Roast Pepper with Green Olive Paste

So, people arrived around 7:15-7:40, and were standing up, talking and munching on crostini until about 8:15.

Uncle Eric: You know ah, I don't like this green thing... peas. And I don't like capsicum.

Er, thanks Uncle Eric.

Uncle Richard: Aiya, you should try it. You don't know what you're missing. These are nice... munch... I like the capsicum, I like the peas.

Aw... let's invite Uncle Richard over more often!

Then, it was time to eat the pie. I stuck the eight grown-ups in the dining room, whilst the “children” – my brother (23 years old), our friend Tim (22) and I (21), were a bit more laid back in the kitchen. Stashing the guests in the dining room instead of the kitchen (which is where we usually eat) also meant that I could prepare the main course without being under the watchful eyes of my parents’ friends.

Aunty Ee-Ling: Sarah, you cooked all of this yourself? Wow, we should introduce you to my sister-in-law's sons, quite cute you know.


Dining room table set for grownups (8 of them) – baguette & bread rolls, onion tart, salad with basic dressing


Onion Tart close up

The onion tart is nice. The pastry is quite light and flaky, if a bit floury (my fault, probably), and the onion flavour is lovely. Also, because there were eleven of us, we only got small pieces – which I think was a good move, as I think it could get a bit rich in larger quantities. Mum absolutely loved it though - success!

Anyway, whilst everyone was eating my pie, I got started on the main course.

54. Roast Monkfish (I used rockling fillets)

According to the recipe, you fry the fish on either side before chucking it in the oven. I tried frying the first couple of pieces, and after two minutes of painful oil splatters and my fish not getting brown at all (so what’s the use in frying?), I gave up and just bunged all the pieces straight in the oven.


Removing fish from oven... check out my shoes

OK, so huge apologies to everyone… I was so frazzled (moi, frazzled?) but I didn’t get a picture of the whole table with the fish, pumpkin and mushrooms on it. And it did look lovely. Imagine me, graciously placing down the plate of white fish, the dish of orange pumpkin and the dish of black mushrooms on the table, smiling, saying “Enjoy your meal!”, and teetering delicately back into the kitchen in my high heels…

…then picture me, thirty seconds later, running from the other end of the kitchen, bursting into the dining room, exclaiming, “OH SHIT! I FORGOT TO TAKE A PHOTO! Mum, quick! Your plate still looks good! Give it here!”, and yanking it from her to quickly snap a pic.


Fish with parsley, mushrooms, and pumpkin puree


One plate - love the colour combo

Fish good. Pumpkin good. Mushrooms… incredible! It’s all about the porcini flavour. Despite my earlier doubts about our guests’ possible reactions to the mushrooms, they were the most popular thing all night. Everyone went back for seconds, and the dish was cleared. The clearing of a plate is always a good sign, and it’s even better when Nigella-quantities are finished!

Ooh, and don’t forget when you make this yourself, to use bread to mop up the black and delicious mushroomy juices. Preferably do this alone, straight from the pan once you’ve transferred the mushrooms to a serving dish – cook’s treat.

Dad: Oh that fish was fantastic. But you know what was really good? Those mushrooms! You know me and mushrooms, I can either take it or leave it… but those were good!

Aw, shucks Dad!

So after eating, everyone just sat around, talking, drinking and laughing. And then it was time for cake. The cake was very moist, and absolutely delicious! I actually think it's better than the Clementine Cake. And that blood orange syrup is absolutely insane...


Look at that red, red syrup


Mmmmmm – how I love that syrup.

My brother was unusually quiet all night. Well, he was up til 4:30 last night playing Tekken 5(tsk tsk), and had to get up early this morning for our tradition of birthday breakfast noodles, and then had an eight-hour shift during the day. But when he ate that cake...

Daniel: AWWWWWESOME cake. Well done.

So, despite all the "adventures" of trying to get all our supplies for the night, it was a fun and relaxed dinner! Phew!


Mum & I – Happy Birthday Mum!

Wednesday Night Dinner

32. South Beach Black Bean Soup (Cooking in Advance)
33. Mushroom-Steak Sandwich (One & Two)

I started cooking the soup at 10pm on Monday night, after an ace episode of Desperate Housewives.

Step 1 – Boil black beans for 1.5 hours.



Step 2 – Sautée up some onion, garlic, shallots, and capsicum with spices.



Step 3 – Blend vegetables



Step 4 – Add veggies to black soup, forming an intensely BROWN sludge.

My dad walked into the kitchen at this point and said, “Mmm… something smells good!” Then he looked into the pot and said, “What the hell is that?” Thanks, Dad.

I left the soup, off the heat, in the pot for two days, and we ate it for dinner tonight, Wednesday.

We had some field mushrooms left over from the Steak and Kidney Pie filling (tomorrow’s lunch… watch this space!), so I decided to do the Mushroom-Steak Sandwiches as well.


South Beach Black Bean Soup - served with diced red onion, chopped coriander, sour cream, tabasco and lime juice (from a carton, because limes are expensive right now!)

This soup's really good, despite its ugliness. It tastes kinda Mexican, because of the spices. It's pretty hearty too.

For the sandwiches, you cover some field mushrooms with a mixture of butter, garlic and parsley, and bake them for 20 minutes.


Mushrooms in oven

According to the recipe, you should then wodge them in a ciabatta or baguette with some lettuce, lemon juice, and Dijon mustard. However, I was out shopping all day today, and forgot to buy any bread. We had some Turkish Pide in the freezer, but when defrosted, it was amazingly both rock hard and soggy at the same time. So plastic white bread it was. It tasted good though. The mushrooms were incredibly flavoursome, and have a great, chewy texture. I am totally making this again, and with proper bread next time.

The sandwich recipe is actually also in Nigel Slater's Real Food, and ever since I got that book, I've been dreaming about it. It did not disappoint.


Sandwich