Abercrombie & Feast

A few years ago, for our first wedding anniversary, Andy and I treated ourselves to a week in Thailand.  My brother was living in Bangkok at the time teaching English, so we decided to spend a week in the capital city.  Lots of people head to Thailand and spend 2-3 days in Bangkok, before heading out to the islands or beaches.  We wanted to stay in Bangkok and really see the city itself (plus… I’d already been to the beaches!)

I have to say, this trip was one of our best.  We stayed very close to a SkyTrain station, so the whole city was available to us.  We could go from our hot, sweaty, fast-paced train station to a cool, quiet, serene temple in a matter of minutes.  We trekked to all of the famous sites and palaces and statues, but our favourite place in the city was a tiny outdoor bar near our hotel on Soi 22.

I am having trouble thinking of a way to describe the little outdoor bars that dot the streets of Bangkok.  They aren’t really bars.  They are barely even rooms.  Basically, when the sun goes down, chairs and tables are set up on street corners.  Passers by can grab a table, get a very very cold beer and a little bowl of nuts or rice crackers.  There were 2 corner bars on our street.  They were directly across a small laneway from one another.  You could talk to the people in one bar from the other bar. 

Andy enjoying a beer at our local outdoor bar

Almost every night after our journeys for the day, we would stop at our favourite of the two tiny bars and have a few cold Tiger or Singh beers.  We would smile and make small talk with the friendly lady-boy tending the bar.  We could watch European soccer being played on the tiny, grainy TV nailed to the side of the building.  We could smell the food from the street vendors who come out at night… lemongrass and lime and 5 spice and chilis.  We could see the men driving motorbikes piled high with deliveries to be made.  We could watch the women cook in the little open air restaurants, using just two woks to cook the food for the whole place.  After our 2nd night in a row at this bar, we were treated like locals.  We didn’t even have to order, they just knew us and brought us our beers and peanuts.  The beers were incredibly cheap (most street food in Thailand is outstandingly good and cheap).  Some nights it was tempting not to leave the bar at all, but to stay there, being refreshed and watching our own personal showing of the theatre that occured in the streets of this humid and complex city. 

In the middle of our trip we spent half a day at a Thai cooking class.  This is one of the recipes we learned.  It’s pretty straightforward and doesn’t require any difficult to find ingredients.  It is also, just so you know, really rather authentic.  We had khao pad moo all over Bangkok, for a few reasons.  First, we knew how to pronounce it (cow pad moo) and wouldn’t look stupid trying to order it in tiny little places where English is not spoken.  Second, it is very good.  Of all the recipes we learned in our Thai cooking class, this is the only one I’ve made regularly at home.  In fact, I just made it last Thursday again, which is what prompted me to write this post.  It reminds us of our wonderful trip to Bangkok and our smiling friends at the corner bar on Soi 22. 

Khao Pad Moo

Serves 2

2 tablespoons vegetable oil or peanut oil
1 small onion, diced
1 chili, diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
100g pork, cut into small pieces
1 small carrot, diced
1 handful snow pea pods, diced
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups cooked rice, cooled
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2 tablespoons seasoning soy sauce* 
2 spring onions, diced
juice of 1/2 lime

Cucumber slices, lime wedges and chili sauce to serve.

Put the oil in a wok over medium high heat.  Add the onion and the chili and cook for a minute.  Add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Push the onion mixture to the side and add the pork to the wok.  Stir so it doesn’t stick!  After about 3 minutes (once the pork is no longer pink), add the carrot and cook for 1 minute.  Add the snow peas and cook for 1 more minute. 

Push all of the vegetables and pork to the side of the wok and add the eggs.  Scramble the egg until it is cooked- about 1 minute. 

Add the rice and stir.  Add the sugar and seasoning soy sauce and stir until combined.  Turn the heat off.

Add the spring onion and the lime juice and stir again until well combined.  Taste for seasoning.  Does it need more salt?  Add more soy.  Does it need more tang?  Add more lime juice. 

Serve this with extra chili and spring onion sprinkled on top and slices of lime, cucumer and chili sauce on the side. 

I’ve never been a huge fan of fast food.  The little town I grew up in didn’t even have a McDonald’s until I was 16 years old.  If I am going to eat fast food, I will indulge in some french fries or a shake.  One thing I will never eat is fast food chicken nuggets.  The texture is yucky and gluey and they always taste ever so slightly of chemicals.

Andy and I have both recently read The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  Reading the actual details of what’s in a Chicken McNugget is enough to put even the keenest nugget lover off of nuggets for good. 

So, in order to avoid eating fast food “chicken nuggets from the Black Lagoon”, but not have to do without chicken nuggets all together, Andy issued me a challenge.  Create a fresh, healthy, very tasty version of a chicken nugget. 

I did a good bit of research into various chicken finger / tender / nugget / strip recipes.  It seems like there is no end of advice out there for those of us who would like to get off the Chicken McNugget Express.  In the end I combined a few ideas, but I was mostly inspired by Nigella Lawson’s recipe for Ritzy Chicken Nuggets from her book Feast. 

These were a great dinner to have mid-week because they didn’t take long to make and they were delicious and very fun to eat.  I can think of lots of variations on the same recipe (add some garlic salt to the cracker crumbs, add some cayenne pepper to the yogurt marinade, sprinkle with some hot sauce whilst baking, etc), but these are just swell the way they are. 

Chicken nuggets
Adapted from Nigella Lawson- Feast

Serves 2

2 chicken breasts
1 container plain yogurt
1 sleeve Ritz crackers
Olive oil in a spray can
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the your oven to 200C or about 390F.  Line a baking sheet with tin foil and spray the foil very lightly with olive oil. 

Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces.  Add the chicken and the entire contents of the yogurt container to a bowl.  Mix well and make sure the yogurt is completely covering all of the chicken.  Cover the bowl with cling film and place in the fridge for at least an hour.  It’s actually best if you can do this the morning before you want to cook these.  Marinating in the yogurt tenderises the meat and makes the nuggets super moist.  However, I only had time to marinate the meat for about 2 hours and the nuggets came out brilliantly.

Remove the nuggets from the fridge.  Crush up the Ritz crackers.  I used the food processor to do this and it worked really well, but a plastic bag and a pan could be equally effective and probably more therapeutic.

Remove the chicken from the yoghurt marinade.  You want each piece of chicken to be coated in yoghurt, but not globs of it.  Scrap some off if you need to so you get a nice, thin coating. 

Dip each nugget into the Ritz cracker to totally coat them.  Press the cracker crumbs into the chicken if you need to.  Lay the nuggets in line on the baking sheet.  When you’ve coated all the nuggets with the cracker crumbs, lightly spray them with olive oil and very lightly sprinkle them with salt. 

Place the nuggets into the oven to cook.  Let the nuggets cook for about 15 minutes before you check on them.  You want the cracker crust to get nice and brown, so you may need to let them cook for a little longer.  Luckily, since you’ve marinated the chicken in yogurt, it won’t dry out! 

Once the chicken is cooked through and the crust is brown, remove the nuggets from the oven.  Allow the nuggets to cool for a few minutes before you try to remove them from the pan.  I was starving and anxious to try them, so I ended up tearing a few off the sheet before they were cool.  They were still delicious, just not very pretty.  Serve the nuggets with your choice of dipping sauce. 

We’ve just returned from a gorgeous long weekend away in Barrington Tops, NSW.  It was my birthday trip this year… all arranged and organised by my outstanding husband.  We stayed in an adorable little B&B, visited national parks with huge sweeping views and small towns with cozy country pubs. 

We enjoyed hot tea and peanut butter toast (my favourite!) for breakfast, cheese platters with crisp white wine in the afternoon, and simple hearty country dinners at night.  Nothing fancy actually.  Just lots of relaxing and enjoying the fresh air and amazing views… and the sunshine!  It is starting to look like spring may actually make an appearance this year and we got our first, long-awaited taste of it this weekend.  It was worth the wait.    

However, the fresh air and restful afternoons of a weekend away do tend to come to a screeching halt during the drive back into Sydney on a rainy Sunday afternoon.  We got back to our apartment in the late afternoon, which gave me enough time to hit the grocery store while Andy returned the car.  I wanted to make something fresh and exciting with enough zing to remind us of the exciting weekend and enough substance to gird us for the bumpy re-entry into city life. 

I know some people won’t think that soup qualifies as exciting… but those people are totally wrong.  And mean.  And probably hate kittens.  This soup was spicy and tangy, with hefty little meatballs and the tart, lip-tingling taste of roasted jalapenos.  This is exactly what I want to eat while I bask in the memories of our time away and enjoy the slow warmth of a spring evening in Sydney. 

Spicy roasted tomato soup with meatballs

Serves 4

For the roasted tomatoes
6 roma tomatoes
1 jalapeno chili (may substitute any spicy chili you like), finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
a handful of basil leaves, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs olive oil

For the meatballs
200g (about 1/4 lb) pork mince
200g beef mince
3 shakes Worstershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

For the soup
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup very small pasta

Preheat oven to 180C or about 350F.  Slice the tomatoes into quarters and arrange in a single layer in a baking dish.  Sprinkle over the jalapeno, garlic and basil.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Pour over the olive oil.  Place the tomatoes in the oven to roast for about 1 hour. 

Meanwhile, put the pork mince and the beef mince in a large bowl.  Add the Worstershire sauce and salt and pepper to taste.  Mix well.  Use this mixture to form small meatballs (about the size of a marble).  Drop the meatballs into a pan of cool water. 

Once you have shaped all the meatballs and added them to the pan, bring the water in the pan up to a boil.  Allow to boil for about 5 mins.  Then, place the top on the pan and remove the pan from the heat.  (This step isn’t strictly required.  I wanted the meatballs to have the very soft texture that they get when they are boiled, rather than baked or fried, but I didn’t want all the fat from the meat in the final soup.  So, by par-boiling them, I got a lot of the fat out first.  You can skip this and drop them right into the tomato soup if you want.  No worries.)

Once the tomatoes are roasted, scoop all of the tomatoes and their juices into a blender or food processor.  Add 1 cup of chicken stock and process for about 1 minute (be careful if it’s too hot!  It will explode!  Let the tomatoes cool for a min first.)

Add the processed tomato mixture to a large soup pot.  Add the remaining chicken stock.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the meatballs from the water they boiled in and add them to the tomato soup.  Allow the soup to simmer for about 20 mins.

About 15 minutes before you are ready to eat, add the pasta to the soup.  The soup is ready when the pasta is done.  The pasta will soak up a lot of the soup, so you might have to add a little more chicken stock or water to get the right consistancy.  I didn’t want it to be very watery, so I didn’t add anything else to mine.

This is great served with a big green salad and good toasted bread sprinkled with Parmesan.  You could also stir some Parmesan or pesto into the soup before you serve it. 

Oh Spring, you fickle, flaky season.  On Friday it was cold and rainy.  On Saturday it was freeeeezing and rainy.  On Sunday it was sunny and breezy.  How is a girl supposed to know what to wear?  Or, perhaps even more importantly, what to cook??  One day it’s “soup-sipping on the couch under a blanket” weather- and literally the next day it’s “cider-sipping on the deck near the ocean” weather.

No matter what the weather is actually like where you are right now, this bread is appropriate.  I originally made this on Saturday when it was frigid and pouring and all I wanted to do was sit right in front of the oven while this baked.  The recipe is from Hometown Cooking in New England, and the weather was certainly more Maine than Sydney.  On Saturday, we ate this bread fresh from the oven, topped with thickly cut ham and spicy English mustard, for a warming lunch whilst the rain fell outside and the heaters droned away in the living room.   

Sunday dawned bright and sunny with a light breeze.  This was very lucky as we had plans that involved a pub near the water, a lot of friends and the beginning of my birthday celebrations.  I toasted up a few slices of this bread, topped them with a slick of cool cream cheese and a sprinkling of coarse salt… and ta da!  A gorgeous sunny weather breakfast that didn’t require me to turn on the oven or use the stove at all.  Hurrah!

 
Obligatory birthday photo

This bread didn’t take long to make, but I admit the preparation was easier because I used my food processor.  If you had to shred the apple and the cheddar by hand, it would take longer.  But it would still be worth it just to smell this bread as it bakes.  You could make this to go along with soups, to make sandwiches out of, for morning teas or just for a mid-day snack.  Unlike Spring, this bread is equally lovely every day.

Apple, Walnut and Cheddar bread

Makes 1 loaf

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar (I used just barely 1/4 cup because I didn’t want this to be too sweet)
2 eggs
1 cup shredded tart apple (I used a large Granny Smith apple)
3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup plain flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup skim milk

Preheat oven to 375F or about 190-200C.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Add the apples, 1/2 cup of the walnuts and the cheese and mix well.

In a separate bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, the plain flour, the baking powder and the salt.  Add 1/2 the flour mixture to the apple and cheese mixture and stir.  Add the other 1/2 of the flour mixture and the milk and stir until combined.  Add a bit more milk if it’s too dry, but you shouldn’t need it.  The batter is very lumpy.

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.  Sprinkle the remaining walnuts and a few flakes of coarse salt on top.  Bake for 35-45 mins, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Another trick to see if your bread is done is to tap the bottom of the tin.  If it sounds hollow, the bread is done!

Let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack. 

I admit it.  I had never heard of Kylie Kwong before we moved to Sydney.  Sad, but true.  I didn’t know what I was missing.

Kylie Kwong is an Australian chef of Chinese heritage.  She is the chef of Billy Kwong restaurant in Surry Hills and has worked with some of the coolest chefs in the world.  And this is all great.  But this is not why I am the newest member of the Kylie Kwong fan club (if there is such a thing… maybe I should start one??)

Instead, I am her new biggest fan for three reasons:

1.  Her restaurant is totally sustainable.  She serves organic food, offsets her carbon emissions and is active with several food-based charities.  We saw her as a guest chef at the Live Green event in Sydney where she demonstrated a wonderful noodle dish and inspired me to try even harder to cook and eat sustainably.  Here are a few photos from that event:

2.  Her food is fantastically good.  Andy surprised me last week with a dinner at Billy Kwong.  I had been to the dentist that morning (those of you who know me will understand how traumatic that was), so he cheered me up by announcing surprise dinner plans.  And the meal was outstanding.  Kylie was there all night, directing the kitchen, talking to the wait staff and even delivering a few plates to the tables.  We had crispy prawn wontons to start, then shared the lamb special and the duck special.  Everything was 100% delicious, but the duck was literally the best duck I have ever had.  The skin was crisp, the meat was tender and flavourful.  It came with a gorgeous sauce with orange and star anise seasonings, but it didn’t overpower the flavour of the meat.  Outstanding.  I didn’t get any pics of the food during the meal.  I was too excited!  Loser. 

3.  At the end of our meal at Billy Kwong, I went up to Kylie and made a total fool of myself.  I couldn’t put a proper sentence together- I was so nervous to meet her!  I babbled on about how she inspired me, and I have found an organic butcher, and how good was that duck, and where did she get the idea for that, and we saw her at the Live Green event, and now I want to make the noodle salad that she demonstrated there, and I watch her show all the time on TV, and I’ve travelled to China, and oh, no I CAN’T. SHUT. UP.  But she was lovely!  She smiled and was so polite and even posed for a pic with me.  (Andy took this pic with our old camera.  The flash was very delayed and, whilst Kylie Kwong sat there camly waiting for the picture to be taken, I totally spazzed about the flash and, as a result, I look horrible in this photo.  So basically, ignore me and admire how nice Kylie is here.  Tragic.)  So, now I am an even bigger fan because she was so gracious during my display of idiot-ness. 

In summary, Kylie Kwong is principled, a wonderful chef, and a person who knows how to deal with me when my babbling takes over.  That should be enough to make YOU want to join the fan club too!