Pork Tortillas with Corn Salsa (by G)

I decided to try something new this week. Fried pork pieces with some paprika and cumin. Lime and corriander at the last moment and some flour to thicken the sauce.

The salsa is red onion, red capsicum, roasted corn, corriander root, half a tin of tomatoes (always in season) and some sriracha for heat.

I had to hand roll the tortillas again but I'm getting the hang of it - I've got the tortillas down to a fine art... though they probably don't bare any relation to real tortillas (goose fat) any more.

I hate trying anything new but this was a good change from the usual slow cooked meat.

Pad Thai (by G)

Part way though today I craved Pad Thai... so here it is.

I don't want to come across as a martyr, but this dish could have been so much better if only I'd made some preparations first instead of started cooking then moving on to the next thing that needed doing. As a result the chicken was a bit dry - also the noodles, they really have to be added as soon as they're drained or they get stodgy.

That said, I think the balance of the sauce was good (juice of one lemon, 1 tbsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp of sugar).  The prawns were pretty well done, the mung bean sprouts didn't get in the way and we had crushed peanuts in the pantry which is almost never the case. 

I also thought pouring an egg over the noodles at the end could create a wierd texture but it was alright.

For anyone jumping straight in to see today's instalment you may notice the photo is sideways, Biggs is going to correct that tomorrow.

Duck and Veg (by G)

We've had a duck carcass in the freezer for weeks - since I decided to make duck proscuito. I thought if I slow roasted the rest of the carcass and stripped the meat off the bone it would make a decent meal. Only problem is - without it's breasts or legs (I have no idea where they got to) there is not much meat on a duck so it was a challenge to get anything out of it.

To compliment the duck I fried off some red onion, reduced down some balsamic vinegar and a little strawberry jam.  The vegetables are pretty much all we have par boiled and fried off.

All in all I think death is on the cards for us.

Pork Buns (by Biggs)

Today I went to... The Best Wedding Ever.

It was a perfect backyard ceremony with tree-top lanterns, vases of babies breath, beautiful bunting, personalised polaroids, take-away home-made jam, birdbaths full of beer, cider and champagne, ice-cream cones of rose petals, tiers of sweets, a charming bridal party complete with bow-ties and..... a basket of thongs for ladies who didn't want to wear their heels any more.

Oh yeah, and The Bun Mobile! Awesome - http://www.thebunmobile.com.au/ .

Pork and Mash (by G)

Biggs is at a wedding today so I'm on leftovers. Today I had some left over pork chunks and a little pork mince so I braised them off with chicken broth, black garlic, and mushroom water (from re-hydrating some dried mushrooms) along with chunks of pumpkin and carrot. Peas were added at the last minute.

The whole mess is served over mashed potatoes with cream and butter.

Pork Buns (by G)

I don't really know what to say about the pork buns. Yes, they were shit - the dough was sticky, strangely yellow... and doughy. But it was not as sweet as usual pork bun dough - which pleases me. I'm also pretty pleased with the amount of filling to bun. Also, the filling was tender and not as sweet as most buns.

The dough is 1 cup flour, 1 1/4 teaspoons of sodium bicarbonate, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/8 cup oil and about 1/4 cup of water - mixed and rested for an hour then rolled out and filled.

The filling is pork fillet diced and simmered in hoisin, oyster sauce, five spice, rice wine vinegar and water for about an hour, cornstarch added to thiken and then cooled.

Despite their weirdness I think I could easily have eaten another half dozen or more so that is some kind of endorsement.

Vegetarian Spring Rolls with Pumpkin and Eggplant Salad (by Biggs)

I searched high and low for a good pumpkin and eggplant recipe but the only options seemed to be stuffing an eggplant with pumpkin or stuffing a pumpkin with eggplant. Good options but I was looking for flavour country. I eventually found an Asian salad featuring carrot, snowpeas, onion, eggplant, pumpkin, capsicum, mungbeans, spinich and corriander.

I thought G would spend the night sighing if I just served salad so I wanted to give dumplings a go. I couldn't find dumpling wrappers and sure as hell wasn't going to make them by hand so I went with springrolls. The filling was super tasty and I think the credit goes to my new friend....the fresh porcini mushroom.

I sort of overheated myself with sriracha in the salad dressing and chilli oil in the spring rolls but will probably live.

Celebratio​n Chicken Wings (by G)

As Biggs revealed on the f-book (whatever that is) chicken wings are a celebration dish. Today we are celebrating 1000 page views (somewhat late, thanks Russia).

Today I presented chicken wings 3 ways:

1) Tomatoey - tomato sauce, grated garlic and worcestershire sauce - this was my favourite.
2) Vietnamese style - I'm taking a liberty here... sugar, Phu Quoc fish sauce (I wouldn't distinguish if it was not The Best), corriander root and lime juice - my second favorite.
3) Honey/Soy wings - honey, soy sauce, grated ginger, grated garlic and sesame oil... sprinkled with sesame seeds. It wasn't as honeyey or soyey as I usually make, the seeds should have been toasted - I assumed they would de-raw in the oven.

I've just heard Biggs' reason why we are big in Germany (which, to the best of my knowledge, we are not). Muy interesante as they say in Deuchland.

Pork Tortillas (by G)

I tried to cut some corners with the salsa tonight by blending it in the electric machine - the result is evident in the photo. It was quick to do but everything came out bruised and colourless and the flavour was definitely not as good.

We didn't have any kidney beans so the meat mixture is just pork, onions, paprika, cumin, beef stock and a tin of tomatoes.  Biggs took our loaner tortilla press back to Darren and Nancy - Kylie and Mick still have our cheap one so the tortillas had to be rolled by hand.  I was pretty bummed at not having a press - rolling by hand is not too difficult though and the result was pretty good. We managed to drop the tortillas onto a glass of water and had to refire half a dozen of them...

Classic Curried Sausages (by G)

This is not one for the health conscious... there is a surprising amount of butter and cream in this one.

The mash is simply boiled potatoes with butter, cream and salt... the holy trinity.

I haven't had much success with curried sausages before but these were pretty good. Sausages fried off, onions sweated with some carrot. Sausages cut in to pieces and simmered in beef stock and some coconut milk (not traditional or classic but I had some left over).  Once the sauce thickened I added peas and... cream... also some butter for shine.

The whole dish turned out pretty salty, comforting and unapologetically lethal.

Seafood Amok...sort of (by G)

This was a request from the ether... I hardly ever cook seafood - I don't really know why.

Today I followed the recipe as closely as possible - the only variances were crimson snapper instead of blue eye; I couldn't find fresh tumeric so I used dried; I've never seen banana leaves for sale and there isn't a tree handy so I steamed the fillets in baking paper; I didn't get any palm sugar and used a lesser amount of white sugar; also, this dish is traditionally served with rice but I forgot to buy any so I served it with lettuce.  It seems like a lot of compromises when I list them.

In terms of flavour, it was pretty good - the paste wasn't blended enough so I've still got an aftertaste of lime zest. The prawns on top were way overdone and nuggety - I put this down to dashing off to get a carton of beer while they were resting in the sauce. The fish was really good - clean and firm fleshed.

I trashed the kitchen but that's a tomorrow job.

Rice Pasta with Leftover Sauce (by G).

I was at the asian grocer today getting ingredients for a future dinner and saw a spirelli rice pasta.

I'd never cooked it before so happily there were directions on the back:

COOKING: PUT INTO BOILING WATER ABOUT 10 MINUTE AND STIR IT TIGHTLY UNTIL IT BECOMES SOFT AND THEN YOU CAN CHOICE IN ANY WAY YOU LIKE.

The way I thought I would choice is to mix Biggs' left over minestrone soup and my left over beef tortilla mix. It was okay, quite grey - I added sriracha and celery leaf on top to add a bit of colour.  The pasta itself is unusual - chewy and ricey. 

Peanut Butter Sandwich (by Biggs)

Dinner was supposed to be Mexican madness at a friend's hens night but I had to call in sick. Some may blame the champagne but I refuse to believe the world's celebration drink of choice would be this much of an asshole to me.

As a result, dinner is a peanut butter sandwich with a side of Nurofen Zavance and a glass of lemonade. The peanut butter sandwich was prepared with multi-grain (8 to be specific) bread and a liberal spread of crunchy peanut butter. I also had a lemonade icy-pole on the way back from the corner store.

Chorizo and Bacon Pasta (by Biggs)

It was a dear friend's Birthday recently so tonight I offered to make dinner to celebrate. Cooking for five is not a talent of mine so I opted for a simple pasta dish. I fried off some garlic, onion, bacon and chorizo then stirred in some passata (cheating) and cream. Basil from a friends garden and salt and pepper to finish. Would have been good if I didn't overcook the pasta but I blame the champagne for that.

Salad was spinich, parsley, goats cheese, walnuts, beetroot and a dressing of mustard, olive oil and lemon juice. The dressing oddly tasted of nothing. The salad was the low-light of the meal even after burning the bread rolls. Once again I blame the champagne. The first time I cooked in this friend's house I set fire to their kitchen (no joke) so this time, all in all, a success I think.

Another friend made an amazing chocolate truffle cake for dessert. Sort of like a flourless chocolate cake sunken in the middle filled with cream and strawberries. There was some fairly heated debate about just uploading a photo of the cake as the dinner picture as it was much more satisfying....for all of the senses.

Packet Tonkotsu Ramen with Fixin's (by G)

Biggs isn't in this evening so I copped out with an easy meal.  Nissin Demae Ramen - Tonkotsu Flavour topped with some bok choi, chilli, coriander root and bbq pork.

I can't believe anyone eats Maggi noodles when there are so many varieties of much more interesting instant noodles about.  I picked this one at random and it's great - pork broth with toasted sesame seads and sesame oil (not to mention Flavour Enhancers 621, 627 & 631 - yum!).

I bought 1/2 a kilo of bbq pork at Hong Lee meats for $11 and 'sampled' about half of it before making dinner... this would probably have been a pretty healthy meal if I'd skipped the porky amuse bouche.

Minestrone Soup (by Biggs)

I'm a bit frustrated that this vegetarian meal doesn't really contain many more vegetables than last night's. I'm also frustrated that the internet couldn't come up with a better recipe than this. I freestyled a little but if your Grandma has a minestrone soup recipe please send it my way. I think it should taste more delicious than this. But, it was alright.

Meanwhile, it really suprised me how many vegetarian minestrone soup recipes on the internet contained beef stock. This one has vegetable stock, zucchini, carrot, potatoes, basil, parsely, butter beans, green beans, tomatoes, celery, onion, garlic, oregano, bay leaf, pasta (elbows!) and maybe some other things. G's workmate grows amazing chillis which is why they feature as a garnish.

The soup was served with home-made basil and parmesan croutons in an effort to bribe G to keep letting me cook once a week. They were pretty average....probably because I used that vomit powdered "parmesan-style" cheese. It says "parmesan-style" right on the packet. G's already banned pre-made pasta sauces from our house and I suspect he's already binned the rest of this "cheese".

Spicy Baked Sausages with Miso Glazed Vegetables (by G)

Growing up Biggs and I had our fair share of spicy baked sausages - the recipe came from, I think, the Australian Meat Advisory Board cook book (surprisingly they advised to eat meat). Tonight's meal is a modern take on that 70's recipe - well, I couldn't remember how to make them so I just free styled it.

To the right of the picture are beef chipolatas opened up and baked in the oven with a filling of tomato sauce, worstershire sauce, home made curry paste and home made 'do not consume' fuck-off hot chilli sauce.

The vegetable component is a mix of roasted and fried vegetables (you'll never guess how many types) with a miso glaze inspired by Mr O... that is to say we didn't have all the ingredients so I free-styled that as well. Miso paste, soy sauce, sesame seads, sugar, some more red chilli sauce and again the hot chilli sauce.  Left over corriander was also added for flavour and colour.

Beef Steak Tortillas (by G)

The only bad thing about Tortilla Tuesday is that it means there are another 3 days of work before the weekend. Our tortilla press is still on loan so Biggs borrowed a fancy one (thanks Darren and Nancy) - I think they are the best tortillas I've made so far and much of that has got to be down to the press... and goose fat.

Making the filling out of whole steak is a bit tricky in a couple of hours - a touch of meat tenderiser helped things along. Steak seared off and sliced, onions and garlic softened with paprika and some ground cumin. Simmer the whole lot off with a tin of kidney beans and a tin of tomatos - normally I put some stock in as well but tonight I forgot.  I'll have to get a new tortilla recipe some time soon, but I like this one so much I'm scared to experiment.

Fried Style Rice with Chicken (by G)

I have selective reading skills, so when I got chicken thighs out of the freezer last night I assumed they were chicken thigh fillets.  Not to worry, I simmered the thighs in a broth of water, soy sauce, rice wine, garlic, ginger and sezchwan (?) pepper corns until tender and stripped it off the bone.

The title is Fried Style rice because I forgot to defrost the left-over rice I had planned to use so it was not as dry as I would like. To me a perfect stir fried rice has some cruchyness to it.  I'm pretty happy I managed to cram some veg in to tonight's dinner. Carrot, mushroom, bok choy stems and leaves, spring onion and red capsicum.  Plenty of sesame oil a bit of soy sauce, ginger, soy, mirin and sriracha at the end for flavour.

I topped mine off with more sriracha which killed most of the flavour but I have an addiction to that stuff...

Sunday Roast (by G)

Not much to this one, a crap load of seasonal vegetables roasted in the oven with whole garlic cloves, rosemary, salt and pepper.

The meat is lamb off-cuts (for budgetary reasons) - fried off in a really hot pan with so much smoke billowing out that Biggs had a cushion ready to fan the smoke-alarm. Fortunately it wasn't neccessary.  I cheated on the gravy - gravox mixed with the meat pan juices.

Bandeja Paisa...sort of (by G)

 As we didn't have tinned pineapple slices I was not sure what to do with ham steaks... then I remembered one time when I was in Medelllin, Colombia (oh yes, I'm well travelled). I went into a small restaurant and ordered randomly from the menu. What came was a wonderful mix of stuff on a plate sausages, beans, salt pork, rice, an egg and (somehow I'd forgotten) pork crackle.

Tonight I made an homage to that meal - Bandeja Paisa - no sausages or pork crackle sadly. I'm a bit chizzed I fucked up the egg but what can you do...

Chilli Dogs (by G)

Back to virtually no vegetables. The mince is re-purposed tortilla mince fried off with chilli oil, chilli flakes, cayenne pepper and sirracha. Last time I made chilli dogs they were so hot they scorched our colons so I went a bit easier on the heat this time.

The buns are toasted in goose fat - it didn't add much flavour but probably shortened our lives by months.  The jumbo pickle looks good, a bit flabby and watery though. 

Chicken Schnitzel with Salad (by G)

This is a simple chicken schnitzel with a fresh salad I threw together in seconds.

The schnitzel is chicken breast I cut up and pounded the shit out of... sorry to the neighbours for that, but it's less inconsiderate than vaccuuming on the weekend.

The salad may look familiar to our legion of fans - it's the remainder of Biggs' dinner from last night tossed with the dressing she made.  The chicken is topped with fried mushroom and shallots.  The fixins were used in the interests of not wasting food.

Bún Chay (by Biggs)

There are some great cheap and cheerful Vietnamese restaurants up the road from our place and I always love the super fresh greens, herbs and chillies they serve with all their meals so tonight I decided instead of a take-away Vietnamese Vegetarian Noodle Salad I should make it myself. Our local asian grocery store provided the lettuce, Vietnamese mint, non-Vietnamese mint, watercress, mung beans, cucumber, shallots, coriander and chillies for not much more than $10.

I think if Tom Colicchio was in our lounge room right now he would gruffly accuse me of having not cooked anything. But, to that, I would say balancing flavours and cooking proteins correctly are two fundamentals and I made a sauce and also fried some tofu. I wasn't sure I'd do this well but it's possible Ho Chi Mihn may not be rolling over in his tomb just yet.

Beef Mince Tortillas (by G)

Someone lent out our tortilla press - which was vexing... even though everything I read says that flour tortillas should be rolled by hand.  Too much effort - not my thing.

I added goose fat to the dough though, that is a welcome addition.  Normally I wouldn't use mince to make the filling, but it's quicker and I'm lazy. Stay tuned, there are many more variations on the same theme coming.

Braised Pork Rashers with Ginger Vegetables (by G)

I wanted to get chicken wings for dinner tonight - when I saw the wings at BRANDED SUPERMARKET sitting stewing in their own slimy pink juices I decided on Pork Rashers. Despite frying the pork skin side down the braising process de-crispied most of it... sadly. The braising liquid consisted of soy, mirin, water, some home made chilli paste and miso paste.

The vegetables were par-boiled and fried off in a simmilar sauce to the braising liquid, along with a small amount of Thai red chilli paste and a grating of ginger at the end. The ginger could probably could have been cooked off for longer, garlic would also have been a welcome addition.

Corned Beef with Vegetables and Cheese Sauce (by Biggs)

I have a particular group of friends with whom I always end up well overstaying my welcome because I just enjoy their company so very much. Gareth’s comment was almost right in that after positioning myself on a friend’s awesome deck yesterday I stayed put for the next 12 hours and forgot to return home. We started with a BBQ breakfast complete with bacon, asparagus and toad-in-the-hole style eggs and followed this with gallons and gallons of champagne as well as a lesson in how to make mock chicken (tomatoes, onions, cheese and an egg mixed up and spread on toast).

The whole afternoon was accompanied by the sound of a slow cooker gently bubbling away in the background so I couldn’t help but stay for dinner to find out what was inside. It was an amazingly tender side of corned beef that was accompanied by vegetables, mash and a hash of cabbage and bacon and served with a deliciously smooth and rich cheese sauce. A beautifully unpretentious dinner any respectable CWA lady would be proud to sit down to. What did I learn today? Every dinner should be drowned in cheese sauce and every dinner should be capped off with a generous glass of aged smoky scotch.

Basa with Vegetables and Mojo Sauce (by G)

Again the photo doesn't do the meal justice... but it was pretty good. Biggs left home at 10 am this morning saying she would be home for dinner - that was nearly 12 hours ago now so I can only assume she is passed out in a jus of her own bile somewhere on the North Side.

The fish is Basa, which it probably poisonous: http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=61416. Basa is, however, boneless with nice texture and so cheap. I'm pretty sure there the apocalypse is less than 6 months off now so I'm not too worried. If cost was not an option I would go with Sword Fish for this dish (even though they are prone to parasites)... you really can't win.

From the picture you might assume I burned the Mojo sauce - I claim it is just a little over-reduced. Toasted walnuts were added for texture.

Canned Chicken Broth with Pork Dumplings (By G)

I had planned to make chicken broth from scratch, but, a couple of breakfast beers demotivated me some.  Happily Burlingtons had chicken broth in a can - sounds delicious - and is.

I also had meant to get some dumpling skins, but, the place didn't have them so I just did skinless fried dumplings. Pork mince, black garlic from Black Pearl, corriander root, some home made chilli paste, soy sauce and an egg all mixed together and blitzed. Quinelled and fried off in sesame oil. Chopped corriander , more chilli sauce and sliced red capsicum garnish for colour... and flavor...

Biggs bought some Goose Fat from Black Pearl so that is bound to feature heavily in future. Keep an eye out for my obituary.





Roast Pork and Wanton Noodle Soup (by Biggs)

So, when we started this blog G and I agreed it was going to be a dinner blog, not just a cooking blog and tonight I wasn't around for a home cooked dinner. Instead, I joined a friend at the French Film Festival for a showing of Haute Cuisine, a brilliant movie based on Danièle Delpeuch, a female chef appointed by the French President to work in the private kitchen of the Élysée Palace. I highly recommend it. Check it out - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls_qn38kmEY&noredirect=1 .

After the movie we went to dinner at Quan Thanh on Hardgrave Road because you can never have enough fresh tasty Vietnamese food. We started with some great shredded pork rice paper wraps and I was also pretty impressed with the beef salad my friend ordered. A note for first timers - a 'Vietnamese beef salad' is not a 'Vietnamese beef vermicelli noodle salad' and is infact just a plate of finely sliced, barely cooked beef with corriander mixed through. Brilliant. I, on the other hand, ordered a roast pork and wanton noodle soup. Yum!

Twice-cooked Chicken on Chorizo Sauce with Rustic Potato and Bacon Crumb (By G)

This is just a simple tomato sauce. Sweated onions, garlic and chorizo - added ground cumin, de-glazed with mirin and added diced tomato.  Once the tomato had desintigrated I added the chicken and water to cover. I thought we had some of those little containers of chicken stock jelly that Marco Pierre White "hand crafts" for Campbells, but only had a sweaty beef stock cube so I added that instead.

Once the chicken started falling off the bone I removed it from the sauce and grilled it off to add colour.  Bow tie pasta added to the sauce to thicken. I also fried off some boiled kipfler potatos with bacon. The corriander on top was added for colour, but in hindsight it looks pretty lame.

I got so excited when I thought to add chorrizo to the sauce that that I forgot to add vegetables...

Pork Noodle Filled Omelette with Crispy Bacon (by G)

A lazy meal of Indomie Mi goreng fried noodles with fried bacon, pork mince, ginger and garlic added - also grated carrot to ward off scurvey for one more day... wrapped in a suprisingly bland 2 egg omelette. Bacon crisped between 2 oven trays with a mortar on top to keep it flat.  I looked in the fridge for something green to add colour but came up short - hence the unappealing look:

Pork and Prawn Scotch Egg (By G)

So, I wanted to do scrambled eggs in the shell like in this youtube demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aazP6zvJmiQ and scotch them... I didn't have a long sleeve shirt so I just used a regular shirt, no twine. A lack of focus meant the first egg went on the floor. Substituted the shirt for a clean sock - much more successful. When it came to boiling, one of the eggs cracked so I had to get rid of that one - then, after boiling, couldn't peel the other one.

Ended up scotching regular boiled eggs with a half/half mix of pork and minced prawn, garlic, ginger and fish sauce - served with a shitty packet salad (marked down to $1.50) dressed vietnamese style (rice wine vinegar, sugar, salt and fish sauce).  Served with extra prawns because there were leftovers.

Halloumi Sliders with Sweet Chilli Sauce (by Biggs)

I recently decided that I should cook at least once a week. I really enjoy cooking but G is much better at it than me and I find it awfully convenient to just sit on the couch and wait to be presented with tasty eats every night. I suspect just to screw me, G decided my meal must be vegetarian and as a result we've had a heavily cheese-based meal at least once a week. As a result of my portion control issues I tried to jam far too much inside the tiny little breadrolls (lovingly hand-crafted by the fine artisian bakers of Woolworths) resulting in them being almost impossible to eat. I was however pretty happy with the fry on the cheese - crispy and melted. So delicious I fried up another packet of halloumi for our dessert.