Prawn Kalamaki with Tzatziki and Herb Salad

Kalamaki is simply Greek for "meat grilled on a skewer", in this case prawns. Peel and devein some green prawns and insert a skewer lengthwise through the prawn, this keeps it nice and straight while it is cooking. This recipe can be found on the masterchef website http://www.masterchef.com.au/prawn-kalamaki-with-tzatziki-and-herb-salad.htm 

On masterchef they cooked the prawns over a yakatori grill, which is basically a small BBQ, the wood and thyme sprigs would give the prawns a nice smoky flavour. I simply cooked mine in a frypan with some olive oil and thyme and they were still really nice. You could possibly smoke them over some wood chips in a wok.

To make the tzatziki you place some good quality Greek yoghurt in muslin and suspend it over a bowl in the fridge overnight to remove moisture and thicken the yoghurt. You then grate some cucumber and drain it well on a chux cloth placed over a rack in a baking dish. You combine the cucumber and yoghurt and add some grated garlic and eschalot, lemon rind, dill (which I wasn't able to buy so I added some fennel fronds for colour), honey, olive oil and cayenne pepper (I didn't have any so added a small amount of paprika). There was something about the flavour of the tzatziki that didn't fully appeal to me..maybe the fennel and paprika!!! My husband loved it and devoured the whole bowl so it was just a personal thing. It did work well with the prawns and a little lemon juice squeezed over the top.

The salad was meant to be a herb salad with fennel, sage, dill, Shiso (a member of the mint family), chives and tarragon. I used mixed baby spinach and rocket leaves, chives and fennel and really think any salad greens would work. The leaves were mixed with pepper and Kewpie mayonnaise which is a Japanese mayonnaise and has a slightly different flavour to our mayonnaise. I found it in our local Coles but it is also in Asian supermarkets. The salad was delicious.

Overall I would rate this dish an 8 out of 10.

Chicken Adobo

This recipe can be found on the masterchef website at www.masterchef.com.au/chicken-adobo.htm

Adobo in Filipino cuisine refers to stewing in vinegar. This is an extremely simple and very tasty recipe. Chicken thighs (you can use a mixture of thighs on and off the bone however I just used thighs off the bone) are placed in a large casserole dish and covered with malt vinegar, soy sauce, a whole head of sliced garlic, bay leaf and peppercorns. I used some cracked pepper rather than whole peppercorns so I didn't have to fish them out before serving! A whole head of garlic sounded an awful lot but it softened and sweetened as it cooked and certainly didn't dominate the dish. In fact none of the flavours dominated this dish...it was just yummy! The chicken is cooked until tender, the recipe suggested half an hour but mine simmered away for a good hour and was falling apart and delicious. Before serving you thicken the sauce with some cornflour. Serve with jasmine rice and steamed bok choy.

Rating 8-9 out of 10.

Mushroom Cappuccino & Baked Mushrooms

I went to a fabulous event at the Hilton in Brisbane on Sunday. It was the Hilton Masterclass and involved going to 5 sessions each one to one and a half hours long. You could choose out of 4 different classes for each session. During the session you were treated to a cooking demonstration and given samples of the dishes being prepared along with matching wines. One of the classes I attended was hosted by Jacques Reymond, a well known chef from Melbourne. I decided last night to try two of the dishes Jacques made for us.

The first dish is a simple mushroom broth served in small cappuccino cups. The mushrooms are packed into a saucepan with a little water and salt and pepper and left to simmer to draw out their natural juices. The juice is then strained off and mixed with cream and milk before being frothed with a stick blender. This broth is quite rich and you only need a small amount of it. I think next time I would reduce the amount of milk and cream and add a little extra salt. I love the look of the soup in the coffee cups and think this is a lovely way to serve any soup or broth as an appetiser.

Rating 7 out of 10.

The second dish was baked mushrooms which were made by placing the mushrooms stalk side down on a baking dish lined with alfoil and baking paper. The mushrooms were topped with sliced garlic, golden shallots, roasted hazelnuts, thyme, parmesan shavings and olive oil. You were also meant to use hazelnut or walnut oil which I couldn't find at the supermarket (obviously a deli item) so I just added some chopped walnuts for extra nutty flavour. Swiss Brown mushrooms would be best for this recipe which I also couldn't find so I used a mixture of button and quartered portobello mushrooms which was still nice.

The mushrooms are covered with alfoil and roasted for 10 minutes at 180 degrees C which wasn't enough as the cheese wasn't fully melted and the shallots were not fully cooked. I would increase the heat and cooking time.

This bake is quite rich with the nuts and cheese but worked really well with steak. I decided to blend up the left over bake and had it on toast for lunch today which was also nice. You could use it as a "mushroom pesto" or dip.

Rating 7 out of 10 (but I think with longer cooking time it would be an 8-9 out of 10!)

Deep-Fried Eggs in a Tomato & Coconut Milk Curry

I have an abundance of fresh eggs at the moment so decided to use some up by making this Sri Lankan curry. The eggs were soft boiled, peeled, rolled in turmeric powder and shallow fried in vegetable oil before being combined with a tomato and coconut milk curry.
The first step in making the curry sauce was to make a Sri Lankan curry powder which forms the base of many of the Sri Lankan dishes. This powder can be roasted (ie the spices are dry roasted before being ground) or unroasted. In this recipe I needed the unroasted curry powder which was made by grinding rice which had been dry roasted for a few seconds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, cinnamon stick, fenugreek seeds, cardamom seeds, black mustard seeds, black peppercorns, dried kashmiri chillies and turmeric powder. After preparing all this wonderful curry powder I only needed 1 teaspoon for this recipe so will have to make some more Sri Lankan recipes to use it while it is fresh!
The curry sauce is then made by frying a crushed cinnamon stick, cumin seeds, yellow mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds and fresh curry leaves for a few seconds and then adding some red onions. Next you add in green chillies, turmeric powder, chilli powder, the curry powder and chopped fresh tomatoes. Finally you add in coconut milk and season to taste.
Despite all the "hot" ingredients in this sauce it was quite mild in flavour. It had interesting textures with the soft egg yolks and the slight crunch of the crushed cinnamon stick and the whole seeds. Using the whole bark of the cinnamon is common in Sri Lankan cooking. I served the eggs with basmati rice. This dish had a comforting Sunday TV dinner feel to it. Like most of Rick Steins recipes it was not difficult but took time to get all the ingredients together.

Rating 8 out of 10.

Pad Thai Noodles

Pad Thai would have to be one of the most famous dishes in Thailand but interestingly it actually originated in China. This particular recipe of Rick Steins comes from Ghost Gate in Bangkok and is redder in colour than some other Pad Thai Noodles due to the addition of sweet chilli sauce.

To make this dish you peel some green prawns and cook the heads and shells in some vegetable oil; the oil is then strained leaving you with prawn flavoured oil.

You then stir fry some garlic, crushed dried chillies and the prawn meat in the prawn flavoured oil. Next you add some beaten eggs, followed by rice noodles, fish sauce, tamarind water, chilli sauce and palm sugar. Finally you add in some dried shrimp, Thai preserved radish (both found in Asian supermarket), peanuts, spring onions, bean sprouts and coriander. You can serve with lime wedges if you like.

This dish did have quite a strong prawn flavour as you would expect.

Rating 7 out of 10.

Duck with Sauce Aigre Douce

This recipe can be found in the masterchef cookbook. The sauce is named aigre douce which is French and means a balance between sweet and sour.

There are 5 parts to this recipe; mini eschalot tart, carrots, celeriac puree, duck breast and sauce.

The eschalot tart was made by caramelising whole eschalots in thyme, balsalmic vinegar and sugar. The eschalots were then placed in muffin tins and topped with puff pastry before being baked until golden. The recipe said to heat the oven to 160 degrees if fan forced but I don't feel this was hot enough to get the pastry nice and crisp and although I cooked the tarts for longer and turned the temperature up for the last 5 minutes the pastry still didn't crisp and was undercooked in parts.

The carrots were made by steaming them in garlic, thyme, whole cloves (I only had ground cloves so just added a little) and chicken stock and then adding a little cream at the end. I added in some broccoli and feel you could easily substitute a variety of vegetables.

I was unable to buy celeriac for the puree so used cauliflower and one potato instead. This was cooked with a bay leaf, cream and milk and then blended and passed through a sieve.

The duck breasts were cooked in the fry pan (skin side down first) and then finished off in the oven. I did cook them a little longer than it said to and this probably caused them to be a little tougher than they should have been but they were still very nice.

Finally the sauce was made by caramelising some sugar in the pan used to cook the duck. I stirred the sugar rather than letting it just melt and this seemed to stop it from melting and caramelising. You then added red wine vinegar, veal glaze or veal stock (which I also couldn't buy, so I just used a little chicken stock), orange zest and orange juice. Finally you whisk in a little butter. As the sugar did not caramelise this sauce was probably sweeter than it was meant to be.

Overall this dish was very tasty. The eschalots were sweet and tender, the vegetables had a nice flavour and the puree and sauce aigre douce worked really well with the duck.

Rating 7-8 out of 10.

Sage-Roasted Pork Belly

This extremely easy Donna Hay recipe was delicious. The pork belly was roasted skin side down for 3 hours on a  bed of garlic cloves then roasted skin side up for 30 minutes with some sage. The result was beautiful crisp skin and lovely tender flesh. I have previously found pork belly to be too fatty but when cooked like this it wasn't nearly as fatty. You can buy pork belly on or off the bone. If you can't see it just ask your butcher as spare ribs are simply pork belly that has been separated so they will probably be able to cut you a full piece.

The recipe used whole bunches of sage but I could only get sage with roots still intact so I just used the leaves. I am sure you would get more flavour with whole bunches but I don't feel it would greatly change the dish.

I served the pork with cubed potatoes roasted with duck fat and sea salt and steamed carrots and broccolini.

Rating 8 out of 10.

Stir-Fried Pumpkin with Black Beans and Ginger & Kung Po Chicken

It has been some months since I have cooked from Kylie Kwong's fantastic book, "My China, A Feast for the Senses" and once again it did not disappoint. What I love about Kylie's recipes is that once you have the basic ingredients in your pantry it is just a matter of buying your fresh produce. All of the recipes use different combinations of a small selection of sauces and flavour enhancers. So stock up on brown rice vinegar, brown sugar, chinese black vinegar, dark soy sauce, garlic, ginger, light soy sauce, peanut oil, sesame oil, oyster sauce, salted black beans, shao hsing wine, sichuan peppercorns and sea salt and try some of Kylie's amazing recipes. All of these ingredients are easily found in Asian supermarkets. If you have not tried any of Kylie's recipes you really should as they are all very simple and I have not made one yet that wasn't extremely yummy. Her food is so different from Chinese as we know it and so much better!

Last night I made Kung Po chicken which is a stir fried dish of chicken thighs, ginger, dried red chillies, brown sugar, roasted unsalted peanuts, light soy sauce, chinese black vinegar and sichuan salt and pepper. To make sichuan salt and pepper (which my husband loves to use to season all sorts of dishes) you just dry roast 1 part sichuan peppercorns and 3 parts sea salt until the peppercorns are fragrant and start to pop. You then cool the salt and pepper mix and grind it to a powder in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Sichuan peppercorns are the dried berries of the pickly ash tree and when you eat this salt and pepper it makes your tongue tingly and slightly numb.

The second dish I made was thinly sliced stir fried pumpkin with ginger, salted black beans, shao hsing wine, brown sugar, brown rice vinegar, light soy sauce and sesame oil.

I served these two dishes with steamed jasmine rice.

Yum!

Rating for meal 8 out of 10.

If there is one Kylie Kwong recipe you really should try it is Mrs Jang's Fried Eggs. Do yourself a favour and make them for breakfast some time. Basically they are eggs cooked in oil and topped with oyster sauce, white pepper, chillies and shallots. Sounds weird but tastes amazing. Oyster sauce works really well with eggs!
You can find the recipe at this link http://www.abc.net.au/kyliekwong/recipes/s952065.htm

Oysters Kilpatrick, Snapper Poached in Garam Masala and Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

This Oysters Kilpatrick recipe was on http://www.taste.com.au/, http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/14122/oysters+kilpatrick and differed from the usual recipe in that the bacon was placed under the oyster meat and the oysters were topped with a mixture of cream and worcestershire sauce, sprinkled with parmesan cheese and baked in the oven. They were meant to be cooked until the bacon was crisp but this didn't really happen due to the fact the bacon was under the oyster meat. The recipe also didn't specify how hot the oven should be so I went for 180 degrees and don't think you would want it any hotter or the cheese would burn before the oysters were cooked through. I cooked mine for 12 minutes. The oysters were still nice and moist and the flavours were delicious.

Rating 8 out of 10.

When I saw Neil Perry cook this dish on Masterchef I was very keen to try it. To prepare for this dish you need to make a garam masala spice mix (I already had one which I had made for a Rick Stein dish so didn't make the one in the recipe). You can use bought garam masala if you prefer. You also need to prepare a tomato and chilli base which is made by slowly cooking onion, garlic, turmeric (fresh if possible), green chillies and ginger for 30 minutes or until the onions are caramelised and then adding chopped fresh tomatoes and cooking for a further 10 minutes until soft. This mixture smelt great while it was cooking!

I bought snapper fillets rather than a whole snapper so I only needed to remove the skin. The fish is poached in a curry sauce made by combining the garam masala, the tomato and chilli base, coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, ginger, fish sauce, palm sugar and water. This sauce is bought to the boil, then you add the fish fillets, turn off the heat, cover and leave for 6 minutes to poach...very simple! Once the fish has cooked you add a little lime juice, coconut milk and some basil leaves. The fish and curry sauce is served with spaghettini (a thinner version of spaghetti) and snow peas and garnished with basil leaves. Neil Perry made his own semolina noodles which I would like to try one day but I didn't have time to go searching for the semolina flour this time. This was a very simple dish once you had made the garam masala and tomato and chilli base. You could easily serve this at a dinner party as most of it can be prepared in advance. The recipe can be found at www.masterchef.com.au/fish-poached-in-garam-masala.htm however I was unable to get this link to open. A version of it can also be found at www.lifestylefood.com.au/.../fillet-of-bar-cod-poached-in-a-pot-with-garam-masala-and-coconut-milk.

Rating 8-9 out of 10.

To finish off this delicious meal I made a chocolate dipping sauce from melted toblerone, thickened cream and kahlua, which is a coffee flavoured liqueur. Once you have melted the chocolate you remove from the heat (or you can melt it in the microwave) and add in the cream and liqueur. You can use plain chocolate or bars such as Mars Bar and add any liqueur you like to this sauce. It is delicious served with strawberries, marshmallows, almond bread or any other fruit.

Spangled Emperor with Fennel & Chestnuts

This dish is a slightly modified version of a masterchef recipe that uses a whole salmon

http://www.masterchef.com.au/whole-salmon-with-tarragon-cream-sauce-fennel-and-chestnuts.htm
I had some Spangled Emperor fillets so simply sandwiched the fennel, garlic, eschalots and tarragon between the fillets, dotted with butter, sprinkled with white wine, lemon rind, olive oil, salt and pepper and wrapped in alfoil.

I cooked it for 25 miuntes in the oven which would have been the perfect time, however my side dish of fennel and chestnuts took longer to make than expected so my fish did end up being a little overcooked as I left it in the warm oven after turning it off.

The side dish of fennel and chestnuts was made by braising fennel, garlic and eschalots with lemon juice and white wine and then adding chestnuts and fennel fronds. The chestnuts (which are available in most larger supermarkets) needed to be roasted and peeled before using. To do this you cut a slit in the shell to stop them exploding and bake in a hot oven (200 degrees C)  for 15 minutes or until the shells open and the nut is tender when you insert a skewer.

They were fiddly to peel and I was glad I didn't have to use too many! Chestnuts have  a sweet, nutty flavour and their texture is like a firm baked potato. They are very filling.

This dish was served with a tarragon cream sauce which was delicious! It was made by cooking eschalots with wine, some juices from the fish, cream, lemon juice and tarragon. It would be beautiful served with any fish no matter how you cooked it. If you weren't able to use juices from the fish I would just use fish stock. I would rate the sauce a 9 out of 10.
Both fennel and tarragon have a mild aniseed or licorice flavour. Fennel is a round, bulbous vegetable that can be cooked in a variety of ways and once cooked is quite sweet. Tarragon is a herb and most commonly known for its use in tarragon vinegar (which is used to make Bernaise sauce).
Rating for the whole dish 7-8 out of 10.

Chicken & Chorizo Paella

I made this paella as it dosn't have any seafood in it and I have two children who do not eat seafood! I would call this a fairly typical paella. Paella is a rice dish that originated in Valencia, Spain and can either be made from meat, seafood or a mixture of both. A paella is usually cooked in a paella pan which is a wide, flat, round, shallow frypan with splayed sides. I found this recipe at http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/20480/chicken+and+chorizo+paella.

Basically you cook cubed chicken thighs, sliced chorizo sausage (a Spanish sausage containing pork and paprika), red onion, red capsicum, tomatoes and paprika then sprinkle with calrose rice (a medium grain rice which I couldn't buy, I substituted with arborio rice, which is used in risottos). You then pour over a warm mixture of chicken stock, white wine and saffron and leave to cook. Apparently a good paella should have a nice crust on the bottom and tender rice. At the end you add frozen peas and flat leaf parsley (I used regular parsley as it was all I had). I did burn the crust a little and think it would take a bit of practise to get it right! The paprika gives the paella a nice flavour and appealing red colour. This was a nice dish but I think I would prefer mine with some added seafood!

Rating 7 out of 10.