Spring Lunch with Friends

Today I had the great pleasure of catching up with Miko, an old friend from Japan who I met when she came to my school as an exchange student when we were seventeen years old. Yes, that's twenty seven years ago folks -  a hell of a long time in anyone's language!  Well, through the magic of social media we found each other last year and when she announced she would be coming to Australia for a short holiday, we couldn't pass up the chance to get together. My first thought was to take Miko and her husband Nao out to lunch somewhere by the harbour, but she has always been such a great fan and supporter of Gourmet Goddess, that I thought I would cook for her instead.

I wanted to showcase some really excellent Australian produce, but with the lovely Spring weather, I also wanted the menu to be a bit of a celebration of the season. We were blessed with a beautiful warm Spring day, so location wise we ended up alternating between the back garden and the dining room. It soon became apparent that we all shared a love of food, and there were lots of conversations about cooking and ingredients and the produce from our respective countries. Definitely culinary cultural exchange. Drinks wise, we enjoyed a bottle of Penfolds Eden Valley Traminer which we bought back from our trip to South Australia last year, along with a few glasses of Gekkeikan Sake - just so that both countries were represented of course!

We started our lunch with an entree of handmade crab tortellini, served with a delicious light lemon, chive and butter sauce. I used herbs fresh from my garden and good quality salted Danish butter for the base of the sauce. I wanted to keep it really simple, so that the silky texture of the pasta and the great fresh crab flavour could shine through. I originally considered doing a larger version of this dish as the second dish on the menu, but decided to make Australian beef the focus of the main course.

 Crab Tortellini

with Lemon Chive Butter Sauce

 

I know that beef is extremely expensive in Japan, so I wanted to treat Miko and Nao to a really good peice of grass fed, aged, top quality Australian meat that they would not have the chance to eat at home. We made a special trip to the wonderful Victor Churchill  http://www.victorchurchill.com/  for some top notch beef fillet to serve our guests. I cooked the beef nice and rare, in one large fillet piece - searing it first in a hot pan, then transferring it to the oven for about 15 minutes, resting it for ten minutes and then slicing it into four thick steaks. I find cooking the beef like this keeps it super moist, especially if you are using a fillet piece. The meat was ridiculously tender and so flavoursome.

I served the beef in a very simple French style, with a crisp on the outside, soft in the centre potato galette, some gorgeous new Spring asparagus and a rich mushroom sauce, made with Swiss Brown, Porcini and White Button mushrooms. Instead of pouring the sauce over the beef, I served it seperately to allow people to put the sauce where they wanted to put it, and to also give the dish a really clean presentation. The beef was a huge hit with our guests.

Rare Grass Fed Beef

with Potato Galette, Three Mushroom Sauce and Spring Asparagus

For dessert, I decided on a semifreddo, but with a bit of a twist - using a yoghurt and cream base instead of the standard cream and egg yolk base. The result was a velvety, slightly tangy semifreddo which I made up in a flexible silicone muffin pan to make moulded individual serves. I flavoured the mixture with some beautiful golden Hunter Valley honey which we bought at a roadside farm stall on a weekend away recently. Really fragrant and beautiful, with just the right amount of sweetness for the cream and yoghurt.

I teamed the semifreddo with an almond and pistachio praline (I made a batch of this a few weeks ago and had a nice big jar full, ready to use) and some sweet Queensland pineapple, which I caramelised with brown sugar in a hot pan. I served the final dessert with edible flowers from the garden to go with the whole Spring theme.

Honey Yoghurt Semifreddo

with Almond and Pistachio Praline and Caramelised Pineapple

I really enjoyed putting this Spring lunch together and sharing it with our lovely visitors from Tokyo. Imagine my delight when Miko presented me with a parting gift of good quality Wasabi and a supply of Bonito flakes she had brought all the way from Japan for me. What a fabulous gift! I see a whole lot more Japanese inspired dishes in my future. We are planning on getting to Japan in our travels eventually, and it will be fantastic to have Miko and Nao to show us where all the good food and Sake is! It was fantastic to catch up after 27 years - and sharing a meal together was the perfect way to do it.

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Tropical Treat - Now!

I went grocery shopping after work tonight and saw some beautiful ripe Queensland pineapple that looked and smelt so tropical and sweet, I just had to buy it. It is a warm balmy night here in Sydney tonight so "tropical" was my inspiration for dinner. I was also starving, so I wanted something fast - no slow cooked anything here this time! I decided on a simple pineapple and chilli salsa flavoured with fresh mint and some quickly marinated chicken, that I then grilled. As usual I did add a more than generous amount of fresh chilli to the salsa, but use as much or as little as you like. I have not specified quantities for the salsa - just add as much or as little of the ingredients as you like, according to how many people you are making it for. Easy.

I used Shaoxing wine as one of the flavourings in the marinade for the chicken. It is a wonderful ingredient that you will find at any Asian grocery store. It is a form of Chinese rice wine, also called "hua tiao" or "carved flower" wine, due to the patterns carved on the urns in which it is fermented. It is not unlike dry sherry in flavour and is used in many Chinese marinades and braised dishes. It is very inexpensive too, so a bottle will only cost you a few dollars. It is an excellent ingredient that I really recommend to have in your pantry. For this recipe, you can substitute dry sherry if you like, but the Shaoxing wine really does add something special to the flavour.

Enough chit-chat - to tonight's super fast dinner.....

Grilled Shaoxing Chicken with fresh pineapple and chilli salsa

You will need: (For the marinade - this will be enough for up to 4 serves of chicken)
1/4 cup light soy sauce, 1 teaspoon grated ginger, 1 clove garlic crushed, 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine, 1 teaspoon finely chopped or minced chilli, A pinch or two of Chinese Five Spice, pepper, 2 teaspoons peanut or vegetable oil. 1 chicken breast or thigh fillet per person.

(For the salsa - be sure to chop your ingredients quite small) Pineapple, cucumber (de-seeded), continental parsley, mint, fresh chilli, red onion, salt and pepper, a very small splash of flaxseed or olive oil.

Method: Combine all of the marinade ingredients with the chicken. Set aside and allow to marinate for at least 10minutes. (ok, so tonight I only did it as long as it took to make the salsa. Not the end of the world I assure you)

For the salsa, combine all ingredients well and refrigerate until you are ready to serve it.

Grill or BBQ your chicken and serve with the salsa. Yum!

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Hawker Heaven

I learned to make today's dish on one of my cooking trips to Singapore, where I ate it at one of the many Hawker stalls you will find throughout the city. I got chatting to the man who ran the stall after complimenting him on how much I enjoyed his dish - a fragrant curry of beef and pineapple. (Ok, it was so good I contemplated licking the plate!) Like many of the stalls, it had been run by generations of the one family - his father and his father before him. They specialised in 3 or 4 dishes and it had been this way for many years - family recipes that were passed down and perfected. I loved his curry - it had a lovely complexity of flavours with a perfect balance of hot, sweet, sour and salt. The meat was meltingly tender and the pineapple added a contrasting freshness to the earthiness of the spices.

Like every local I met in Singapore, he was full of passion for food and eager to talk about it. I took notes as we talked about the spices he used, how he prepared them and how he put the dish together and the next day I headed to the market to buy spices and ingredients to try my hand at my own version of the dish. (If you are ever in Singapore, head to Tekka Market in Little India for a jaw dropping array of produce, spices, meat and seafood) I don't flatter myself by thinking for a moment I would replicate what I ate at that stall exactly, but I figured I had a starting point and I would go from there. I was really delighted with the resulting dish and it is a real crowd pleaser when I serve it to friends. And every time I make it I still think of that Hawker stall in Singapore :)

You will probably not find ingredients such as Belacan (shrimp paste) and Candlenuts at your regular supermarket, you will need to head to an Asian grocer/supermarket. They will be really easy to get there as they are staples in many Asian cuisines. And finally, don't be daunted by the fact that you need to make the extra effort to get the proper ingredients or the fact that you are making the spice paste from scratch - it is really easy and the result is a really authentic tasting dish that you will make again and again. The little bit of extra effort is worth it, I swear!

Beef and Pineapple Hawker Curry

A note about the ingredients:
Belacan (shrimp paste) - smells awful, tastes amazing. This dense paste adds a wonderful richness to curries and I promise that the smell will disappear as it cooks. It is usually sold in blocks or in screw topped containers. I go the container option as it is less messy and keeps the aroma under wraps when it is stored. It lasts for a long time and a small amount goes a long way. Once you use it, it will become a regular addition to any curry you make.

Candlenuts - These oily nuts look a lot like Macadamias and are grated and used in Asian cooking as a thickening agent. Despite their resemblance to Macadamias, do not eat them raw. The oils in them will make you sick unless they are cooked.

Palm Sugar - This can be sold in 1 large block, or in packs of small ones. It ranges from a light golden colour to a dense dark brown. I prefer to use the kind that is darker in colour and I have found that the varieties from Indonesia have a superior flavour. A lot of palm sugar also comes from Thailand and whilst this is completely fine to use, I really recommend the Indonesian product if you can get it. Just check the label to find out where it is from. And one last hint - If your palm sugar is very hard, grating it will make it easier to handle.

You will need:
(For the spice paste) 8 long dried red chillies soaked for 15 mins in water, 3 fresh red chillies, 8 eschallots, 3 cloves garlic, 3cm piece ginger, 2cm piece galangal (it tends to be pretty hard, so instead of chopping it, I recommend grating it finely), 1 tablespoon coriander seeds, 1/2 tablespoon cumin seed, 8 whole cloves, 1 teaspoon white peppercorns, 1 teaspoon black peppercorns, 1/3 cup warm water.

(For the curry) 1 kg diced beef shin (gravy beef), 1/2 fresh pineapple - core and skin removed and cut into chunks the same size as the beef, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, 2 teaspoons shrimp paste (Belacan), 3 diced tomatoes, 400ml coconut milk (I use the light version - it still gives the rich flavour without the humungous amount of fat that is usually contained in coconut milk), 1 tablespoon fish sauce (Nam Pla), 2 tablespoons grated palm sugar, 3 grated candlenuts, 1 cup water, 1 bunch fresh coriander roughly chopped.

Method: First, make your spice paste. In a dry pan, add the peppercorns, coriander seed, cumin seed and the cloves. Toast them gently until they begin to darken slightly and release their fragrance. Be very careful not to burn them - if you do, start again. If they are burnt you will end up with a bitter and unpalatable dish.

In the food processor, put the roughly chopped ginger, eschallots, roughly chopped fresh and dried chillies, chopped garlic, grated galangal, toasted spices and the warm water. Blend for a minute or two until it forms a paste. It will not be super dense or ultra smooth like commercial spice pastes - this is normal. (You can also use a mortar and pestle for this step if you have the time and upper body strength!)

Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy based pot (I use my cast iron/enamel casserole dish for this). Add the spice paste and cook it gently until it starts to darken slightly. Add the shrimp paste and cook for another minute. Add the beef and combine with the spice mixture. Allow the beef to cook for a few mintues.

Add the tomatoes, palm sugar, fish sauce and half of the coconut milk. Mix well and simmer for a minute or two. Add the rest of the coconut milk, pineapple and the water. Simmer on a very low heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

After one hour, add the grated candlenuts. Stir thoroughly and cook for another hour. When the meat is super tender and you are ready to serve, stir through the fresh coriander.

Serve with rice or noodles.

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