Dinner

More recipes…

The way I’m picking the remaining recipes is by looking at my list (typed out, size 12 Times New Roman font), and just going for whatever I haven’t crossed out yet.

This was dinner tonight. It was just a casual meal, for the parentals and I, but it turned out to be quite nice and special.

368. Lentil and black olive crostini (Dinner)
369. Prawn and aubergine crostini (Dinner)
370. Hollandaise sauce with Seville orange juice (Basics etc.)

I started on the lentil and black olive crostini while I was cooking this afternoon, by cooking 30 grams of puy lentils until soft. You gotta process the lentils with some black olive paste / tapenade (available at any supermarket these days), a bit of water to bind, and a teaspoon of Cognac. (Once again I turned to my parents’ surprisingly handy stash of mini-bar bottles, collected over years and years of overseas travel). The mixture can be left in the fridge until needed.

The prawn crostini are pretty easy too – you bake an eggplant in the oven until soft, and cook some prawns in a pan with garlic and chilli. Then you process the eggplant flesh and the prawns together. Ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, second crostini topping.

I had some leftover slices of baguette, all bagged up and ready to roll. They just need to be toasted on each side in the oven, takes about 8 minutes a side from frozen. (See below for the photos).

Now, as for the hollandaise sauce, Nigella says it could be a treat as a “once-a-year accompaniment to plain, baked or grilled white fish and broccoli”, but to treat this deviation from the classical with caution. (Even though I don't really understand why, the result is pretty damn tasty).

In keeping with my use of the retro egg-slicer, I pulled out my mum’s super retro double boiler to make the hollandaise sauce in. I also had Rod Stewart’s Greatest Hits blaring, but that’s another story.


retro double boiler

It’s the usual deal, egg yolks over simmering water, into which you gradually whisk cubes of softened butter until it’s all emulsified and sauce-like. At the end, you add a squeeze of Seville orange juice instead of lemon juice. Pretty simple. Hilariously, I got distracted singing to Rod Stewart while using the retro double boiler, and curdled the stupid sauce! So I had to start again, and this time I used my usual bowl suspended over simmering water dealy, and concentrated properly. And that worked fine. I served grilled chicken breasts, and steamed asparagus and brocolli with the sauce.

So here are the crostini. The light ones are the prawn crostini, topped with chopped coriander. The dark, lentil crostini are garnished with a teeny slice of cherry tomato. (Nigella says to blanch, peel and de-seed the cherry tomatoes, but I said "stuff that" and just left them raw).


crostini

Both were quite delicious, but I loved the prawn one! Prawns! Chilli! Garlic! Eggplant! It's like all my favourite flavours conveniently spread on a single, easy-to-eat crostini.


sauce and vegetables


chicken

That is some tasty, tasty sauce. I did have to warn my parents that "this is a mega-fattening sauce", just so that we wouldn't immediately drown all our food in that deliciously buttery-rich sauce. I've liked all of Nigella's variations on hollandaise, and feel no qualms about deviating from the classical.

Wow, I'm amazed that this mish-mash of random recipes resulted in such an elegant dinner! Lucky me.

Thai Clam Pot

342. Thai Clam Pot (Low Fat)

Clams are surprisingly difficult to find. On Saturday morning, I asked Dad to take me to Prahran Market (the only place where you can ALWAYS find clams). However, he thought it was too far, and said we'd be able to find clams in Kew or on Victoria Parade (the Vietnamese district), both of which are much closer.

Well, there were no clams in Kew. (But on the upside, I did buy the most fabulous egg and bacon baguette at the wonderful Convent Bakery on High street. The baker also gave us a free loaf of light rye and a latté. Sweet!)


egg & bacon baguette (emphatically NOT low fat)

We then headed to Victoria Parade, and started looking at their fishmongers. There were mussels, crabs, pippies, all sorts of fish... but no freaking clams! It was only at the third fishmongers we visited that we found clams. I didn't think looked like clams, but Dad assured me these were clams - the kind that he used to eat growing up in Malaysia. And seeing as I was making an Asian dish, I thought they'd be appropriate.

So I took them home, and soaked them, then drained them, ready to use.


asian clams

This dish is pretty straightforward. Cook noodles in boiling water and set aside. Then heat through garlic, spring onion and dried chilli in a little oil, before adding sake and water, allowing it to boil and then chuck in the clams. I'm used to cooking clams until they open, so I hovered near the stove, watching the boiling liquid, waiting for the clams to open. 5 minutes passed, and not a single one opened. Shit. I got more and more nervous, until Dad came in and told me, "They're not supposed to open, don't overcook them!". Whoops. I guess I'm just not used to handling Asian clams.

So I quickly finished off the dish by taking the clams off the heat and adding fish sauce and coriander, and tossing the whole lot together.


thai clam pot

It was very tasty, although opening each clam individually proved to be a bit annoying. (This is ok if you're eating a big bowl of chilli clams with no accompaniment, but not when you're eating them with noodles.) Next time I make this dish, I'm sticking to ordinary vongole clams!

Mmm... I love eating mussels!

Mussels fall into that category of "things Sarah tries to avoid cooking". This may seem bizarre, as I love to eat mussels, and they're not that hard to cook. But the thing is, really, really fresh mussels aren't easy to come by. At Box Hill they can be pretty hit or miss, and I never really feel like driving all the way to Prahran or Fitzroy just for mussels. But when I went to Box Hill this morning, the mussels I saw there this morning looked good, so I was in business.

310. Thai-Flavoured Mussels (Low Fat)

This dish took a grand total of 10 minutes to make. The first stage is to finely chop up some Thai-style flavourings - garlic, ginger, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves - and cook them in stock until soft. I used dashi, but Nigella says you can use anything you like. Then you add finely chopped chillies, then the mussels themselves. Finally, you pour over a mixture of boiled water, lime juice, mirin and fish sauce, and let it cook until the mussels are steamed open. To serve, you throw in some chopped coriander.

It smelled absolutely heavenly! Before the How to Eat project, my cooking repertoire relied heavily on mod-pan-Asian flavours, which were so popular throughout the early years of this decade. Since starting the project, I've not been eating this type of food so much. I've missed it!





Just one note - Nigella's recipe feeds one, and I doubled it to feed my mum and I tonight. This wasn't nearly enough! I don't think you need more mussels, but adding vegetable or noodles would really help, especially considering how fragrant and strong the broth was.

But overall, this tasted absolutely lovely! And to think, there's no added fat in the dish at all. Great stuff.

A low-key lunch

It was quiet at work yesterday, so I thought I’d better get started on my pledge to assault my friends with invitations to eat. I messaged Mark…

Yo. U free tomorrow? Wanna come over and eat lunch? Nothing special or fancy. (Seriously)

He was free, and he did want lunch.

Later that night, we caught each other online…

Sarah says:
Hey, u like prawns yeah?
Cos i'm thinking either steak or prawns but steak is dependent on my finding tarragon at safeway tomorrow

Mark says:
yeah
LOL
u are FUNNY

Sarah says:
wot

Mark says:
"low key lunch"
in ur words i believe
and now its turned into surf or turf!
lol

Sarah says:
haha
nah it's low key because the COOKING is easy
in fact, i could probably just sit back and make you cook the lunch...

Mum and I went to Box Hill this morning, and based on the available ingredients, this is what I cooked for lunch. (Sadly, I couldn’t bring myself to force Mark to cook the lunch).

292. Mashed potatoes, truffle oil and warm Santa Barbara shrimp (Basics etc.)
293. Baked figs (Fast Food)

The prawn dish (in Australia, “shrimps” are miniature prawns) is inspired by one that Nigella once ate at a restaurant in Los Angeles. Simply, it comprises whipped potatoes, topped with barely poached tiger prawns and drizzled with truffle oil. Easy. The recipe appears in the "Freezer" section of the Basics etc. chapter, and is one reason why we should all keep raw tiger prawns in our freezer.

The figs need 15 minutes in the oven, so I put them in just as we were sitting to down to lunch. What you do is arrange the figs in a dish, “cut each one as if in quarters, only leaving the base intact”, and then pour over a syrup made of honey, red wine, cardamom pods and butter. From here they go into the oven.


raw ficchi

And then we ate!


sarah & markii



This dish was really nice, and an unusual combination. I would never have thought that simply pairing mashed potatoes and prawns would result in such a satisfying and complete meal. The final drizzle of oil does help, though. (I used a combination of extra virgin olive oil and truffle oil).

After lunch, my mum took all the leftover prawn heads and shells and used them to make a fragrant, vibrantly orange stock.

Now, dessert. I was a bit apprehensive about the baked figs, for two reasons. First, I’d never eaten cooked figs before. Whilst, nominally, they seemed very appealing, I was unsure about how I’d react to the actual taste. Second, the wine-cardamom-honey combination was used in the baked wine spiced plums, which I didn’t really like.

But I needn’t have worried. These figs were fabulous. Check out Mum and Mark’s reactions after I put the figs down on the table.


yum! figs!

The syrup was absolutely lovely, and after eating dessert, Mum suggested that we go out and buy more figs (at $9.99 a kilo!) just to use it all up. It was also a great light dessert, considering the warm weather and the heavy mash that preceded it.


Fichi

I served it, as Nigella insists, with Greek yogurt. I do love that authentic Greek taste. The creamily tangy yogurt is the perfect foil for the soft and sweet figs.


Yumm close up

We finished the meal with coffee…



It was a lovely warm and sunny day today, the cooking was easy, and the company was (as always) lovely. What a fab lunch!

Aussie Aussie Aussie... Oi Oi Oi!

Well slap a pair of white jeans on me and call me Bill Granger, I made an Australian recipe tonight!

271. Fried Prawn Cakes (One & Two)

The "white jeans" example is particularly apt, as this recipe is taken from Leonie Palmer's Noosa Cookbook. Noosa's this beach resort town in Queensland. You know the type, lovely white beaches, full of super-tanned, super-blonde people in bikinis, sarongs, kaftans and hoop earrings. Ew! It's not really my type of place... but the fabulousness of recipe proves that Noosa does indeed have redeeming features.

The main ingredient is, unsurprisingly, prawns. My dad bought these wonderfully blue prawns, which were so luminescent that they could have come straight off a fashionable chunky necklace.


blue prawns

To these prawns, you add flour, sherry, garlic, spring onions and water to make a stiff (and still gratifyingly blue) batter. Then you have to let it sit in the fridge for an hour before you get to the deep-frying.


batter

Deep frying is such a brilliant way of cooking food. I love eating deep fried food, (as most sane people do), but even more, I love the deep frying process itself. Just scrape off rough spoonfuls of the batter into the hot oil, and watch them turn from gooey-blue to white and red, and finally to crispy golden brown. They smell divine too, smelling exactly like a good Chinese restaurant does.


deep frying

I made a double quantity to feed my parents and I, and to have some leftovers for my brother when he eventually comes home from work tonight. And, as per Nigella's suggestion, I served it with mayonnaise, fiercely sharpened with lime juice and fresh chopped coriander.


prawn cakes

I also added some mixed salad leaves, just to create the illusion of healthy virtuousness.


Plate

These are quite compulsive, and the sharp mayo is a great accompaniment for the dense and slightly crisp balls. We all loved them, especially my dad, who insisted that I make these the next time he has guests over. (This is his standard, and very welcome, compliment for good and fancy food).

Bonza prawns cakes, mate.

A pie with crabs

I woke up at about 10 this morning, and wandered groggily to the kitchen, whereupon my mother started assaulting me with information…

Mum: Sarah! Daniel’s going to some Brazilian thing tonight.
Me: Huh?… what… what?
Mum: I dunno what he’s doing,… it’s a dancing samba thing or something… ask him, ask him!
Me: He can’t go out… we’re having crab pie!

I then walked into the lounge room, slightly more awake, to find Daniel at the computer…

Me: What’s this Brazilian thing Mum’s talking about?
Dan: Oh yeah, Alissa from work invited us to go tonight…
Me: But I’m cooking dinner! I told you already! Wait, what exactly is happening?
Dan: I don’t know, she’s got to call me back…

I went to watch TV for a bit, and then went back to Daniel.

Me: Dan, what are we doing?
Dan: Ok, Alissa called back. There’s this Brazilian festival thing on at Fed Square, we can go whenever, it goes on until 9 tonight.
Me:... outraged... WHAT!? 9 o’clock!! You know I'm cooking dinner, Daniel! You can’t just go out and say “oh yeah we’ll be back at 9" and think that dinner will just magically be ready”. These meals don’t just HAPPEN, you know! They take time, they take planning!
Dan: Yeah, but Alissa has to be at work at 6 tonight, so we’d leave the city at 5:30 anyway.
Me:... slightly less outraged... Ooooh...well that’s ok. Um... can you take me to the supermarket now?
Dan: Yes!

And this menu, from Weekend Lunch, is what I had planned for dinner.


LUNCH, TENTATIVELY OUTSIDE, FOR 8

241. Crab & Saffron Tart
242. St. John’s Salad
243. Baked Caramel Apples

You may remember that my father and I cooked the crabs and picked the meat ourselves not too long ago.

So today, while Daniel was getting changed to go to the supermarket, I started off the pastry for the crab pie – putting flour and cubes of butter on a plate and stashing it in the freezer. Then we went to the supermarket to pick up all the remaining ingredients for dinner. After we came home, I put the butter and flour in the processor, pulsing it until it looked like breadcrumbs, adding an egg yolk and some iced water. Once it all came together, I pressed it into a flat disc, covered it with glad wrap and shunted it in the fridge. While it was resting for its specified 20 minutes, I tidied up the kitchen a bit. I was rolling out the pastry and lining the tart tin when our friends arrived. You can leave the pastry-lined tart tin in the fridge until you need it, which is what I did.

We ended up coming home at around 6:20pm, having picked up an extra dinner guest on the way (Hi Tim!). I figured that an extra person was easy accomodatable seeing as the pie is supposed to feed 8, and I'd cleverly bought 5 apples instead of 4.

The next step in making the pie is blind-baking the case. Last week, I bought some proper ceramic pie weights (no more rice or dried beans for me, thank-you!), and was very excited to break them in.


Pie weights - I wonder if using these will make my pie stronger...


pie weights in action

So you cook the covered, weighted-down pie for 15 minutes at 200C, then uncover it and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Verdict on the pie weights: they rock! They're heaps more effective than rice or dried beans, due to their higher density.

While the pastry cake is baking, you can get on with the filling. The first layer of filling is a tomato sauce, which you make by simmering a tin of tomatoes with some garlic, a bay leaf and thyme. When it's thickened, you spread it into the pastry case.


tomato

The next layer consists of saffron-infused double cream (just heat a few spoons of the cream in a saucepan with saffron threads and let it steep before re-adding it to the rest of the cream), mixed with egg yolks and the crab meat. Normally I'm very good at being frugal and not over-filling my pie cases, but considering the expense of all the ingredients (double cream, eggs, crab meat), I didn't want to waste a drop and chucked the whole lot in. Also, looking at the ingredients list, I'm sure you'll appreciate why my dad rescheduled his cholesterol test from the day after the crab pie to the day before the crab pie!


raw filling

The pie needs to cook for about half an hour. After this, you're supposed to give it an hour to cool to its "paradisal, slightly baveuse best". Well, seeing as I'd only come home at 6:30pm, it was already 8:15 when the pie came out of the oven, and like hell I was going to wait for an hour! I just chucked it into the fridge to speed the cooling process while I set the table and prepared the salad and pudding.

Now, the baked caramel apples. This recipe is simplicity itself. You just fill some cored apples with butter and light muscovado sugar, pour some lemon juice and calvados into the dish, and bake them for 50 minutes. I put them in the oven straight after I took the crab pie out.


apples ready for oven

The St. John's salad is a mixture of flat-leaf parsely leaves (unchopped), finely sliced red onions and capers, barely dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.

We ate our dinner outside to enjoy the balmy summer evening.


table


crab & saffron tart


st john's salad


one slice

I must say, my pie went down an absolute treat! I think it was a bit warmer than Nigella would have intended, but still delicious. All the elements complemented each other perfectly, and I truly believe that it was worth it to cook and pick the crabs ourselves - it had a fresh, delicate taste and texture, which was clearly evident, and not lost in he creamy-eggy mixture. And despite all the seemingly heavy ingredients, it was not "rich and odoriferous" at all. On the contrary, it was dangerously easy to eat. I was hoping to have some leftovers, but the 5 of us wolfed down my pie easily, and could have gone for more had it been on offer.

We finished eating at about 8:50, and the apples finished cooking shortly after. Mum, Dad and Daniel had planned to go out and see the 9:20pm Good Night and Good Luck, which left us with little time to eat the (still searingly hot) apples. So I decided that they should go out and see their film, while the apples sat cooling in the kitchen. Nigella says they can be left out for a while anyway, so I wasn't worried.


cooked and cooling

Tim, however, had to go home at this time, so I packed him an apple in a bowl in an ice-cream container to take home with him.


Tim’s package

After everyone left, I put the remaining apples in a separate bowl, and poured the sauce from the baking dish (see below), into a saucepan, put the lid on, and left it on the turned-off stove.


apples, sauce

Now I'm just waiting for them to come home so we can eat them!

Taramasalata

240. Taramasalata (Weekend Lunch)

One of the best things about this recipe, in my humble opinion, is its name. Try saying it in a Greek accent. When you go shopping for the ingredients, tell the dudes at the deli counter that you need smoked cod's or mullet's roe to make your own taramasalata from scratch. Even if they don't stock it, they'll be well impressed, especially if they are a cute Greek fishmonger, and you are a young eligible Asian girl.

So here's the can of tarama (aka smoked mullet's roe) that I bought at Prahran Market this morning. Nigella asks for the non-canned variety, but the Greek guy from fishmonger told me that his Greek mamma used to make taramasalata from a can, so the canned stuff is more than authentic enough for me.


Tarama

And this is what it actually looks like!



To turn the tarama into taramasalata, you put it in a food processor with some stale bread soaked in water, garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil. At Nigella's suggestion, I put some yogurt in too. Well, it worked really well for the hummus. After processing, I tasted it, and it was way too salty, with a bitter aftertaste, (much like the last person I gave caviar to, hrmph). So, I kept adding more bread, yogurt, oil and water until I got the right texture and taste. I was surprised at its modest buff colour, totally different from the lurid pink taramasalata that you see in Greek delis and in supermarket tubs. I was almost tempted to add some pink colouring, but thought better of it.

We ate the taramasalata for dinner tonight, and as for serving it, I took a suggestion from the One & Two chapter. Nigella says that this is how she used to eat the taramasalata with her sister, Thomasina.

On the evening of her arrival, at the beginning of any weekend she stayed with me, we always shared taramasalata eaten with warm pitta, with, alongside on the table, a plate of hot crisp grilled bacon and a bunch of spring onions.

In addition to the wonderful pita (bought this morning and made fresh by the felafel cart dudes), crisp grilled bacon and taramasalata, we had leftover hummus, baby cos leaves, and the excess bits of freshly-picked crab. Fabulous stuff. We cut up the spring onions Peking duck stylee, at my dad's insistence.


dinner

The taramasalata is very nice, but despite its buff colour, it is very strongly flavoured. Unlike the hummus, which I happily eat by the bowlful, the taramasalata has to be used sparingly, lest you receive an unpleasantly strong and fishy, salty mouthful. In more normal quantities, however, it's great.

Crab pickin'

So, like I said, we bought some whole crabs today, with the aim of cooking them, picking out the meat and using them in a recipe. Check out my shopping list - crabs and calvados. Can anyone guess which menu I'm going to be making?

The last time I dealt with crabs was at my old work as a cook, when all I had to peel off the outer carapace and split them in half, ready for the buffet. I never enjoyed that (hideous) job, but preparing crabs under the tutelage of my dad was much more fun that preparing them under the gaze of insane chefs/cooks/dishwashers.

I assumed, from having read about crab preparation, that cooking and picking the meat would be an arduous task. Not true. Dad said that he did it all the time back in Malaysia and that it wouldn't be a drama at all. He was right! Go Dad!

So firstly, you gotta cook them. This means chucking them in a wok, puttin a lid on, turning up the heat, and waiting until they turn red. Thank God, even though they were fresh, they were most definitely dead. So there was no scary pincering or spooky movements in the wok.


Crabs in wok


Dad cooking crab


red

Then you gotta let them cool down for a bit (otherwise you'll burn yourself).


Hello Mr. Crab, meet Mr. Pestle

The first thing to do is to stick your thumb under the flippy bit on the underbelly, and peel off the shell, revealing grey fluffy bits.


underbelly

Dad: See these, these are gills. You can't eat them, you have to throw them out. The Chinese use them in soup. That's why the Chinese are the best.

So you chuck the gills out, snap the crab in half, and snap each half into quarters, one leg at a time, pulling out the flesh from the body, and then cracking open the leg and pincer bits with a pestle to get at the sweet flesh beneath.


crab 3

It did cause a bit of mess, but it was fun. And Dad was hilarious, slurping up every last bit of crab meat that we couldn't get off the shells with our hands.

Dad: Man, this smells good. Screw the recipe, let's just eat the crab with chilli sauce.


meat

I bagged up the necessary amount for my recipe, which joyfully left us with a smallish bowl of crab meat which we can eat with dinner tonight.


Bagged

I've put the crab meat in the freezer (who knows when I'll get time to make the recipe, or harder still, get my ass down to Prahran Market!), ready to go.

Cod with Clams

239. Cod with Clams (One & Two)

This dish is designed for one, but I increased quantities for 4 of us. Upon making it, I realised why Nigella designates it for a solitary supper - it's a bit fiddly to make. That's not to say it's impossible to make in larger quantities, but it just requires a bit more dexterity and care.

As I said in my previous post, I bought gummy shark instead of cod, but I think any white fish would be fine. To start, you melt butter and oil in a pan, and slowly heat some garlic slivers in it. Then you dredge the pieces of fish in cornflour and cayenne, and fry gently on both sides.


frying fish

Dump in your clams and pour in some sherry and water, clamp on a lid and let it boil until all the shells have opened. At this point, I realised that by the time all the clams cooked (I needed a kilo for four people), the fish would be disentegrating, so I carefully fished them out (what a pun!) and set them aside whilst the clams finished cooking. Once the clams are done, you remove them to a plate, and boil down the sauce with a bit of butter. Onto each plate goes a piece of fish, surrounded by the clams, and with the sauce poured over.


cod with clams


the table

We served it with Phillipa's Corn Bread, which was fabulous.

This dish was quite easy to make, and an unusual inclusion in my repertoire. It kinda tastes like moules marinière. My family really liked it too. Much better than the duck liver sauce, which was tolerable rather than delicious. Phew!

What's for dinner?

I was talking to my mate Mo this morning.

Me: I'm gonna make dinner tonight but I don't know what yet.
Mo: Cool. Just turn the next page in the recipe book... choose that.
Me: Sure. Why not?

187. Prawns with Garlic and Chilli (One & Two)

Dad and I went to Box Hill in the afternoon to get the ingredients. I can't believe I haven't made this one before, as all the ingredients are extremely easy to access, and quick to cook. Garlic, red chilli, olive oil, prawns and white wine are cooked in a large pan, using that steaming/stir-frying/pan-shaking technique that you would expect to use to cook mussels. It's impressive too.

Mum: Ooh, we're having prawns? What's the special occasion?

Once cooked, the remaining liquid is gratifyingly bright orange. I removed all the cooked prawns with a slotted spoon to let the sauce bubble away and reduce without danger of the prawns overcooking.


Sauce


Prawns with garlic and chilli

Nigella says to serve the prawns with baguette, but I forgot to buy any, so we had rice instead.

Dad: I'm glad we're eating this with rice and not bread. The rice goes better.

I'm inclined to agree with him.


Dinner

Nigella says that she eats these "carapace, head and all". Whilst we are great shell-suckers, and do not like to waste a single scrap of prawn meat, (Make sure you get the meat out of the tail! And suck the brains out!), we weren't quite able to bring ourselves to actually eat the shells. I started off quite civilised, peeling the prawns with my hands and then using my fork and spoon to eat them, but after the third prawn, I gave up on the cutlery idea and just dug in with my hands, Malaysian curry style.


carapace mountain

Actually, the incredible mess which occurs whilst eating this dish means that it's probably a good thing that the recipe only serves one. I tripled her recipe for my parents and I, who, luckily, are not anal-retentive when it comes to table manners at home. However, as you might expect, tripling the recipe gave us heaps of leftovers. Enough for my brother to have the remaining prawns, straight from the fridge, as a proper meal after coming back from work.

These prawns were so delicious, and so simple! I can totally see myself making this again, and soon.