Abercrombie & Feast

Just dropping by quickly to share some very good news.  After months of eyeing each other up, longing looks at stolen moments and dreaming about how good we could be together… I’ve got a new pan in my life!

I’d like to introduce you to Griddle Pan Man.  He’s blue (azure according to the box, but let’s not be poncy about it.)  He’s from France (Le Creuset to be exact.)  He’s solid and dependable and dreamy (if you’re into that kind of thing.)  He was an anniversary gift from the man in my life, and I’m smitten with them both! 

I’ve only been with Griddle Pan Man since Monday, but we’ve already spent some real quality time together.  Just look at this dinner we made together tonight… talk about team work!

So, be prepared to hear lots of sappy stories about our happy relationship and all of the exotic things we’ll be cooking together.  I think we’re going to live happily ever after.

Red Curry Pork Burgers
I should have given you this recipe a long time ago.  This is one of those “everyday” recipes that I make fairly often, but never think about sharing here.  Which is a shame, since these are easy and really good.  Especially if you have a Griddle Pan Man to make them with and a lovely husband to feed them to! 

Serves 4

500g (1lb) lean ground pork
2 tbs chopped coriander (cilantro)
1 tbs freshly grated ginger
3 tbs Thai red curry paste
Chopped chilli to taste
Peanut oil

Combine the pork mince, coriander, ginger, curry paste and chillis if using in a bowl.  Shape the mixture into 12 patties.  Place the patties in the fridge for about 10 mins to firm up.

Heat a griddle pan (or a regular frying pan, if you haven’t yet met the Griddle Pan Man of your dreams) over medium heat.  Brush the pan with peanut oil to prevent sticking.  Cook the patties in batches for about 5 mins per side (or until cooked through.) 

Serve the patties with Jasmine rice, a salad of shredded cucumber, carrot and radishes and chilli dipping sauce.

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. 

Well, every now and then, I get to cook.  I say this because usually my lovely wife rules the kitchen, and I have to play by her rules (such as gaining permission to use the kitchen).  However, once a month she either doesn’t feel like cooking (upon which she instructs me to cook), or I request a night of ownership of the kitchen.

Tonight was one of MY nights.  I picked out a meal, looked at some recipes, and picked up the food from the market.  That being said, I did forget the rice.  Luckily, my wife was happy enough to pick up this last piece for me so that we didn’t have just a naked stir fry in a bowl.

I call this recipe: Cracked Pepper Pork

It is rather straight-forward and easy.  It is a collection of chopped veggies with sauce that you cook over medium-high heat.  Nothing fancy, and you can pick several of your favourite veggies as well.  I was even instructed by a relative (her side of the family) that leftover veggies work well for making a stir fry.  I am not necessarily recommending this (Sorry Nance).

The recipe worked well, but I would recommend adding more chili if you like it spicy.  It lacked a bit of heat for us.

Cracked Pepper Pork

This recipe serves 4 and takes about 15 minutes to cook.  Leave a bit of time for prep work – chopping vegetables, making veggie stock, slicing meat.

• 400-500g-piece pork, thinly sliced
• 3 tbs vegetable oil
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp cracked black pepper
• 1 medium brown onion, diced
• 2 large garlic cloves, crushed or finely diced
• 1 bunch broccolini, cut into 4cm lengths
• 160ml (2/3 cup) vegetable stock
• 1 red chili, chopped
• 1 handful of snow peas
• 4-5 shallots, chopped  (spring onions)
• 1 medium red capsicum, sliced  (bell pepper)
• Steamed rice (for the final product)

Cooking steps

1. Preparing the meat – Combine the pork, soy sauce, sesame oil and pepper in a large bowl and mix well.
2. Open a refreshing cold beverage (Carlsberg in this example).
3. Heat 1 tbs of the vegetable oil in a wok over high heat until just smoking. Add half the pork mixture and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes or until brown.  Transfer to a heatproof bowl. Repeat with 1 tbs of the remaining oil and the remaining pork mixture, reheating the wok between batches.
4. Heat 1 tbs of oil in the wok over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add the onion and stir-fry for 2 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and half the shallots (spring onions) and stir-fry for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add broccolini, capsicum, red chili, and vegetable stock.
5. At this point, add soy sauce, sesame oil, and cracked black pepper to the veggie mixture to taste.  Stir-fry for 3 minutes or until broccolini is bright green and tender crisp. Add the snow peas in the final 30 seconds.
6. Return the pork to the wok and stir-fry with the mixture for 1 minute or until mixture boils and thickens.  Taste and add soy/sesame oil/black pepper as necessary.
7. Serve with steamed rice and add remaining shallots/red chili to the top as garnish.

When I was a kid my father told us horror stories starring his mother’s pork chops.  Shoe leather was the most common flavour invoked when discussing those pork pucks of old.  These stories have haunted me and I have always been a bit wary of cooking pork of any kind.

A few nights ago Andy and I had a few friends around to our new apartment for dinner.  It was a bit of a housewarming and a bit of a way to say thanks to some mates who helped us move into our new place.

We started the evening with cannellini bean bruschetta.  This is a super easy and simple starter that can usually be made with things already hanging around in our kitchen.  The bruschetta was great- spicy, crunchy and hearty.  In fact, it may have been the best part of the meal!

For a main course I bought a big pork loin.  We have a wonderful butcher near our new place, so I got him to prepare the pork loin for me and to score the fat for making crackling.  I was so excited!  I’ve never even attempted crackling before.  I rubbed olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic on the pork loin, poured some cider into the roasting pan and put the whole thing in the oven.

The pork crackling came out brilliantly.  The potatoes were soft and soaked up some of the cider.  The braised red cabbage was savoury and colourful and still a bit crunchy.

But… the pork.  Dry.  Not terrible, but not moist and juicy either.  I was excited by the rest of the meal, but the pork really let me down.  And then I thought, “Maybe it’s not my fault!”  Maybe I can’t control my inability to cook pork any more than I can control my height or my eye colour.  Could it be a legacy from my grandmother?  A dry pork gene??  That must be it.

Cannellini Bean Bruschetta

Serves 6 as a starter
As I’ve said, this may have been the big hit of the evening.  Although, the crackling went over very well also (as pork fat tends to do.)  This recipe doesn’t contain any pork fat, but it’s pretty great anyway.

Two 400g cans of cannellini beans
2 red chillis
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
1 baguette
1 garlic clove

Drain the beans and rinse under cool water.  Finely chop the chillis (remove the seeds for less heat.)  Mix the chillis and the basil through the beans.  Add the lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.  Mix well and let them rest for a few minutes to let the flavours mingle.

Meanwhile, slice the baguette into 1/2 inch thick pieces.  Toast until warm and beginning to brown.  Once toasted, rub each slice lightly with the garlic clove.

Top each slice with a spoonful of the bean mixture and a drizzle of olive oil.