Lamb and Couscous (by Biggs)

Kyo no tema, kore des! Kyo no tema……COUSCOUS!

Allez Cuisine! Bang a gong we are on!

After amateur night yesterday, tonight I planned a restaurant-quality couscous dinner....but it turned out quite rustic round the edges.

My plan was to buy couscous, some lamb, a bunch of my favourite ingredients and throw them all together to see what happened. Fairly good things happened but boy it was a bit hectic in the kitchen. I fried up some onion and capsicum with cumin and turmeric. Then I fried up some bacon in one pan. In another pan the lamb. In another pan the pine nuts. And a pot for the couscous. I, of course, burnt the pine nuts. 

I put some more pine nuts in a pan. Then I chopped up some olives and parsley and mixed all the tasty bits through the couscous. Then I burnt myself on the lamb pan. Then, of course, I burnt the pine nuts again.  

And that’s it. The couscous battle is O-VAH! Who takes it? Whose cuisine reins supreme?

PostScript: Little does G know, on my day off work today, I had time to send my blu gourmet pearl couscous barcode in to win a dinner party hosted at our house by Gabriel Gate....so, I guess it's more pearl couscous for tomorrow night's dinner.

Moroccan Style Chicken and Couscous (by G)

I've gotten out of the habit of cooking every day so it was a bit of a surprise when I realised that I had to cook tonight.  I was trying to think of something a bit different to do and did an internet search for Turkish recipes - I didn't fancy any of them but stumbled on a Moroccan dish, 'Chut b' chi zyu'. It's a fish dish, but when I got to the supermarket I didn't much fancy handling fish today so I got chicken tenders instead.

To begin I fried the chicken until cooked through then chopped it up and put it in a big pot with red capsicum, carrot, some spring onions that were in the fridge, leftover coriander, some dried red chilli, sliced garlic and a sauce of turmeric, paprika, oil and chicken stock... I also stayed from the recipe and added some of my new Korean red chilli bean paste.  All of that was bunged in the oven - covered for 25 minutes, uncovered for 5 minutes and it was done.

I didn't much like couscous once apon a time, then I cooked it for myself and realised it didn't have to be dry and flavourless.  Though couscous is a logical choice for a Moroccan meal I was a bit scarred from last time having spent about half an hour wandering around the supermarket trying to find it. Happily, this time there was a whole shelf of the stuff in all variety of sizes and endorsed by a number of celebrity chefs - after long deliberation I decided to get large size endorsed by one of my favourite TV chefs.

Gabriel Gate endorsed blu gourmet pearl couscous is excellent. I wont go into the details about how I prepared it because, purely by co-incidence, Biggs came home this afternoon toting a packet of Gabriel Gate endorsed blu gourmet pearl couscous for our dinner tomorrow and has been talking up her prospective dish - so I'm not giving her any tips.

My couscous dinner was excellent, stay tuned for a verdict on Biggs' 'attempt'.

Pork Chop (by Biggs)

Tonight I went to The Loft in West End to meet some lovely ladies for our monthly book club meeting. As is tradition, we ate well, drank well and didn't talk about the book. 

I had heard rumours that this place does pulled pork sliders but I must have missed that boat because they weren't on the menu. Instead I ordered a pork chop with sweet potatoes and apple coleslaw. It was excellent and the two for one deal was just an added bonus. 

I usually have a bit of order envy when I go out to dinner and even though Anna ordered ribs and Bec had an awesome looking parmigiana, I was super happy with my chop. 

Any meal that finishes with gnawing on a bone is okay by me. 

Spicy Baked Sausage and Noodle Hotdogs (by G)

Biggs is dining out for this evening so I decided to make something a bit experimental in case it didn't turn out too well - also, I had some sausages left over from last night so I had to use them up.

I ran a little groove into the top of the sausages and filled them with a mix of chilli red bean paste, sriracha, sugar and Worcestershire sauce then oven baked them along with some frozen packet chips for a while.  When they were just about done I boiled up some Mi Goering Spicy flavoured noodles (along with some spring onion I chopped up yesterday but didn't use).

The noodles and sausages went onto soft while hotdog rolls and the chips went on the side topped with some more sriracha and mayonnaise.

Turns out noodles are excellent on hotdog rolls - unlikely as it is for me to admit, but the sausages were probably surplus to requirements.

Mapo Tofu Tortillas (by G)

Just about every time I watch Iron Chef Chen (the Szechuan Sage) Kenichi is cooking Mapo Tofu so I thought, "What could be easier than stuffing a tortilla with Mapo Tofu.  Turns out nothing is easier.

You mix pork mince, silken tofu, ginger, garlic, chicken stock, Chinese cooking wine, soy sauce, red bean chilli paste and sugar then thicken it up with corn-flour slurry.  The Mapo Tofu was served with packet tortillas, cos lettuce leaves (to provide a barrier for the tortilla) and had spring onion for sprinkling on top.

Two criticisms - silken tofu is a pretty unappealing texture and should not be consumed.  There was no pork mince at the supermarket so I had to de-skin some pork sausages - though I love sausages this was not the texture I was going for either.

If I'm allowed one more criticism... this was not Chen's recipe - I think his would be much more flavourful.

Chicken BLT (by Biggs)

For Christmas Nancy got me a German grain bread mix and today I finally got around to baking some. It didn't go well. I think I added too much water so the dough was quite sticky and didn't ever really seem to cook through however long I left it in the oven.

The only thing I could think to make for dinner that featured bread was a BLT. So, bacon was fried, tomato was sliced and a packet of rocket was opened. I also fried up some chicken breast to bulk out dinner. I tried to toast up the bread as much as it would.

For flavour I served it with some peri peri hot sauce and some avocado mashed with lemon, salt and pepper. Even though we already own a number of different chili sauces I specifically wanted a peri peri flavour. It was hot.

Barbequed Meats (by G)

Today, being Australia Day, I thought a barbequed dinner was in order. Rather than one or two meats I decided on 3.

I wanted chicken wings but could only get legs so I marinated them in soy, mirin, ginger, garlic, and sugar.

The other two meats were inspired by recipes from Luke Nguyen's 'Greater Mekong' series.

Chang Mai Pork is a marinade of garlic, coriander root, ground coriander seeds, sugar, soy, oyster sauce and pepper. Rather than pork belly I used a couple of cheap chops.

For the Uyghur Spicy Beef Skewers I marinated pre-cubed beef with a mix of vegetable oil, soy sauce, salt, chilli flakes, ground coriander, cumin, ginger powder, nutmeg, paprika and Sichuan pepper.

Everything was marinated for hours and hours and hours.

With a small barbecue and a lot of meat it is tricky to juggle the cooking so first I dropped some foil wrapped potatoes onto the coals then blackened the chicken legs and popped them into the oven to cook through. Next I put the pork chops and beef skewers on the grill - when they were half cooked I said a curse word when I remembered the corn should also have gone on so I chucked them on - then almost immediately realised there wasn't enough room on the grill so I put them into the oven with the chicken.  Once the pork and beef was cooked I took them off and discovered I hadn't taken the potatoes out as I'd intended.  Anyway, I put all of that stuff into the oven to stay warm while I unwrapped the corn and put them directly on the grill to get some colour. Then I dumped everything on a plate.

The corn was really good and fresh, the pork was a bit sweet but the coriander flavour was pretty intense and good. The beef was really flavourful, really, really flavourful. I thing sprinkling the skewers with more cumin and chilli flakes while they were grilling was a bit of overkill...

Roast Beef (by Biggs)

Why have meat and three veg when you can have meat and two veg? It's Saturday night so I wanted to make something a bit special. And, what's more special than roast beef (other than roast pork, obviously!)?

The only smallish roast available was already flavoured with some parsley and pepper but it didn't stop me adding more salt and pepper before putting it in the oven. The instructions suggested I cook it for 20 minutes and rest it for 10 so I decided to cook it for 40 and rest it for 15 which was pretty well perfect.

I decided to serve it with my two favourite vegetables - potatoes, mashed (with 50% butter) and peas, boiled (with 0% butter).

I also decided to serve it with my favourite gravy - salty from a packet.

My final inspiration was to put some whole garlic gloves in the baking tray with the meat. The first time someone served me a roast with whole roasted garlic I thought it was pretty whack but very sophistimacated. Surely you know what you're doing if you're making your guests eat garlic shell paper. Turns out it's how the professionals do it too so I went with it. Very "on-trend" you see.

Dinner was terrific.

Cheesy Pork With Braised Vegetables (by G)

I was watching Iron Chef (the Japanese and only good version) and saw the Iron Chef wrap a sweetfish around some cheese, crumb it and deep-fry it. That seemed and excellent idea to me if the fish was substituted for pork.

Things didn't go quite right from the start. I bought some pre-beaten pork schnitzel pieces from the supermarket - disappointingly they were all irregular sizes and it appeared some of them would not wrap all the way around the cheese - so I did a little extra beating but there's only so far a piece of pork is willing to be beaten. I thought I'd get around the likelihood of the cheese oozing out by enveloping the cheese in some nori before wrapping in the pork. Through a mathematical mis-step I didn't cut the pieces of nori large enough.  By that point my carefactor was much reduced so I just wrapped and skewered everything together, bathed the pork in a slurry of egg, flour and water, then dusted with a breadcrumb/parmesan mix and fried.

The oil got a bit hot at one point and I burned some of the crumbs, then I stuck them in the oven to stay warm.

I was looking for a couple of sticks of celery the other day and could only find a ginormous full bunch so I was determined to use up some of it today. I fried the celery in butter along with some carrot and mushrooms then added pepper and beef stock and reduced - braised vegetables in minutes.

I also oven roasted some little potatoes to ensure there was enough food.

As expected the cheese oozed out of the meat roll so I served it (rather elegantly) on the side. The time in the oven toughened up the pork quite a bit so it was quite leathery.  Despite these issues I still enjoyed this dinner.

Beef and Black Bean Sauce (by Biggs)

When I was deciding what to make for dinner I remembered that G went through a period a few years back of ordering beef and black bean sauce at every given opportunity. Unfortunately every recipe I looked up had only two steps - fry the beef, add the black bean sauce.

But, I pushed on and eventually found a recipe that involved me taking a lunchtime trip to Burlington's to purchase black beans. The recipe called for fermented black beans but the only options were dried, preserved or salted. I wasn't going to be bothered soaking the dried ones so it was a toss up between a small packet of preserved beans that seemed a little dry or a large packet of salted beans that seemed to have the right moist texture. At the risk of having a huge amount of (potentially) inedible beans left in our cupboard I went with the large packet. The instructions on the back sensibly suggested giving them a thorough rinsing prior to eating.

Even though I followed these instruction and gave the beans a good rinse they still tasted like.....poison, salty salty poison. But, once they were added to some fried beef, snow peas, onion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, rice wine and served on rice...they were delicious.

In other news, G very generously agreed I could use his precious Japanese-fuck-off-sharp-do-not-touch-bitey-san knife to thinly slice the beef but at the last minute I chickened out and just used an old blunt one I found our drawer. Dinner was served and I still have all my fingers.

Pork Medallions and Pasta Salad (by G)

Today I wanted to wrap something in nori but did not want to go to all the effort of making sushi rolls so I decided to wrap pork fillet in nori.

Because it has been quite hot lately I decided to serve the pork cold along with a pasta salad - which seems like a very summery thing (in a low rent kind of way).

To get the pork started I seasoned it with salt and pepper then fried the surface to a brownness - then I brushed on some yakitori marinade from a jar then popped it in the over for 15 minutes, then re-basted with marinade then ovened it for another quarter of an hour.  After the pork had rested for a while I stuck it in the fridge to chill.  Come serving time I wrapped the pork in a sheet of nori - which was initially less successful than I'd hoped. Pork fillet is not a cylinder as in my mind but knobbly and tapers at one end - I ended up having to brush the seaweed sheet with water and mush it around the pork a bit.

The pasta salad is just a mix of cooked spiral pasta, finely diced cucumber, celery, yellow capsicum and tomato - then mixed through some mayonnaise.

To serve I sprinkled some powdered seaweed on the plate and drizzled some more of the marinade over the top.

I was pretty pleased with this dinner - it took very little time (it's like the more effort Biggs puts in to her dinners the less I make with mine).  The nori didn't add much but my burning ambition for today was fulfilled.

Peking Chicken Tortillas (by Biggs)

I knew I wanted to make tortillas with some sort of Asian flair tonight and after not much time on the interwebs I found a recipe for Peking Chicken Tortillas on the Epicurious website.

I made a sauce with hoi sin, soy, honey, ginger, garlic, rice vinegar and cayenne pepper. I sliced up three chickens worth of thigh fillets and marinated them in some of the sauce. After baking them in the oven for a little while I fried the pieces up for a little colour and caramelisation.

I simmered the rest of the sauce and threw some fresh plum in at the end. I was pretty happy with the sauce, it was well balanced and the cayenne added a nice little kick. The secret is that I followed the recipe precisely....except for quantities. I probably didn't need to quadruple the ingredients, the sauce was so rich we ended up with about four times too much left over.

The only greens involved were some sliced shallots which were a nice touch. I also added some capsicum because it was in the fridge and had to be used.

Tomato Tartare and Things on Sticks (by G)

It has been seasonably warm lately so I thought it would be a nice idea to have something refreshing for dinner.  I came up with the idea of a tomato tartare and, of course, there is such a thing. Both Ferran Adria and Thomas Keller have a version but I'm very lazy so I made the very lazy persons version.

I skinned and chopped some tomatoes, then added lemon juice, basil, salt and pepper and let it chill - then moulded it up on a plate and topped it with parmesan.  I also sliced up a large bread roll, sprinkled the slices in oil and oven crispied them - while they were still hot I attempted to rub the croutons with garlic - the bread was a bit brittle so that was not altogether successful.  My tartare was a bit weepy when I plated it so I squeezed out the excess moisture before serving Biggs' portion.

A tartare on its own would not be much of a dinner so I augmented it with some skewers of cabanossi, olives, capsicum, celery, ham, cucumber and cheese.  I had meant to top them off with some leftover de-tinned beetroot - alas, I forgot.

I guess, on the whole, this was a pretty healthy and fresh dinner.

Porterhouse and Beetroot Salad (by Biggs)

The other day, G mentioned that he really likes beetroot which surprised me but it inspired me to make a beetroot salad. This one was made with rocket in a red wine vinegar, beetroot, feta cheese and toasted walnuts.

I served the salad with a porterhouse steak that was on quick sale for half-price at the supermarket. The steak had stickers all over it assuring the buyer (me) that the steak was 'still fresh'. I still decided to overcook it to be on the safe side. Actually I overcooked it because I was temporarily distracted by the cricket but we grew up on overdone steak so didn't have too much trouble choking it down.

Not sure what else to say. I served it with a shite-load of grain mustard.

The Vietnamese Restaurant (by Biggs)

The Vietnamese Restaurant has featured on the blog before because it's a bit of a favourite....especially before a gig at the Tivoli. Fi and I headed here before going to see the Lumineers tonight and ordered up big. We had dim sims, lemon grass beef rice paper wraps and some sizzling lamb. It was all excellent especially washed down with a bottle of white wine. We enjoyed dinner so much we almost missed the Lumineers. Not much more to say.....the night was swell.

Spicy Pork and Vegetables (by G)

All week I've been looking for pig skin to serve as a plate for a dinner meal. Today I found pig skin so I decided to crisp it up and top it with a spicy pork dish.

 

Unfortunately, despite crisping up the pork skin it shrank in size and there was nowhere near enough to serve as a plate - so I served it on the side.

 

The spicy pork was made by marinating pork in white pepper, garlic powder, chilli powder, cayenne pepper, black pepper, dried chilli, some chilli sauce, soy sauce and sugar. Then I fried it up in some rendered pork fat with some blanched carrot, broccolini, whole garlic cloves, spring onion and capsicum. 

 

This was an okay dinner, the pork was surprising bland despite all the spicy input. The crackled pork skin was awesome.

 

Mini Hot Dogs (by Biggs)

We've done pretty well with vegetables and salads this year (comparatively) so I decided it was time for a sausage sizzle reward, just like on election day.

I had planned to use small dinner roles and little chipolatas but couldn't find dinner rolls in our suburb and sure as hell wasn't going to leave our suburb on my day off. Instead I just bought normal bread rolls and larger Irish chipolatas.

I halved the bread rolls, slathered them with mild English mustard, filled them with some fried onion and jalapeno, added a chipolata and topped them with some tomato sauce. They were excellent.

For our second round G and I free-styled. Well, G free-styled, I had mine exactly the same way. He trialed his with mayo and parmesan which I can only assume was weird.

Not Szechuan Chicken (by G)

I had a barbecued chicken carcass in the fridge that required eating so I spent some time today thinking about what to do with it. I remembered I also had some Szechuan peppercorns at home so I decided on barbecued Szechuan chicken.

Unfortunately, when I got home, the peppercorns eluded me. Turns out you can make a pretty close approximation of Szechuan pepper by blending white pepper, cardamom seeds and star anise.

I stripped the chicken carcass of all the meat then chopped it up (the meat that is) and fried it with some red capsicum, steamed carrot slices, spring onion and Chinese sausage - then I added a healthy dose of my pepper substitute, a sauce of white vinegar, sugar, chilli sauce, Chinese cooking wine and soy sauce. To finish I stirred through some thin noodles and corn flour slurry to thicken then topped with some spring onion greens that I had sliced thinly and soaked in cold water.

I really enjoyed this dinner - very savoury and spicy... though I do pity Biggs, she doesn't handle the heat so well.

Smoked Salmon (by Biggs)

Even though G and I live only marginally above the poverty line*, tonight we had smoked salmon and 'caviar' for dinner.

I originally decided I was going to make halloumi, asparagus and salad for dinner but then I thought smoked salmon would go nicely with asparagus. I tried to think of other things that might go well with salmon and decided on potatoes, eggs and bread.

I was a bit intimidated making potato salad for G as he is quite the expert (both at making and eating it) but it went quite well. I mixed the potatoes with mayonnaise, wholegrain mustard, chives and fried ham steak. It was probably the highlight of the meal.

I tried Wylie's trick of adding bi-carb to the egg water to make them easier to peel after cooking. It definitely worked but the result of substituting bi-carb with baking powder was that the water foamed up at an exponential rate filling the whole stove with powdery foam creating a scene very reminiscent of horror movie The Blob. I topped the eggs with 'caviar' 'cause there was some leftover from G's Sunday soup and salad.

Turns out smoked salmon gets very, very rich when you eat as much of it as we just did. It almost killed us but was well worth it. The ciabatta I served with dinner was a lifesaver cutting through all the rich.

*Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, "Poverty Lines: Australia, March Quarter 2013", ISSN 1448-0530

Gorditas (by G)

At some point in my internet meanderings over the past month I came across a photograph of a tiny little Mexican food truck and noticed they served Gorditas so I thought I would check it out.

Basically Gorditas are fresh tortillas fried in oil, cut open and stuffed with tasty. In this case I stuffed them with finely chopped barbequed chicken, cheese, fried red onion, fried capsicum, coriander, jalapeno, cumin seeds, oregano, paprika and a dash of Fi&Dan's world renowned tomato relish.

For a side I wanted to make a 3 bean salad - apparently they don't sell three bean mixes in a tin any more, only four beans. So I mixed a tin of various beans with some red onion, tomato, coriander, jalapeno, salt and a dash of lime.

Also, just for flavour, I made a picante sauce of tomatoes, garlic, jalapeno, salt and lime. Tomato and jalapeno in everything.

I was a bit dubious about frying the tortillas but they turned out excellently. I would have to say this was the best tortilla related dinner I've made in a while - which is good because I was running out of ideas...

Lemon Chicken Koftas (by Biggs)

I've already run out of ideas about what to have for dinner so I now just rely on the hope that I'll randomly stumble across a recipe every second day to make the following day. I caught a bit of Justine Schofield yesterday and she was making these so that was dinner decided.

The flavour in the koftas is onions caramalised in honey mixed with some preserved lemon and harissa. I wasn't going to commit us to owning a whole jar of preserved lemon so I just used non-preserved lemon. We didn't have harissa but I read you could substitute harissa with a sriracha, cumin and coriander mix. I couldn't immediately find our sriracha so I just used some green chili, tabasco, cumin and coriander seeds. Once that cooled I mixed it with chicken mince, egg, flour and coriander mix.

I made a quick salad of cucumber, olive, tomatoes and mint. The mint and tomatoes together made the salad quite sweet but it was still okay teamed with the koftas. The koftas were good, they could have done with a little more flavour but the flavour that was there was quite nice. I think I'd make them smaller next time....they turned out a bit sausage meatloafy being this size.

Summer Soup and a Sandwich (by G)

Biggs bought Ferran Adria's 'The Family Meal' quite some time ago and I felt a bit guilty that I haven't cooked anything from it yet.  The other day I was looking through it and found a recipe for gazpacho soup - which seemed a good idea for the summer.

Gazpacho soup alone would not make much of a meal so I decided to do a soup and sandwich combo.

The gazpacho soup was made by blending some blanched garlic, capsicum, cucumber, tomato, red onion, some stale bread, vinegar, olive oil, a little water... also, surprisingly, mayonnaise.  Unfortunately when I came to strain it I think I over-strained it so it was a very thin, texture-less liquid... which is probably why the lumpfish roe I spooned on top sank right to the bottom.

The sandwich consisted of lettuce, beetroot (because we have some left over), tomato, Swiss cheese and home boiled corned beef - on a Kaiser roll, with some mayonnaise.

The soup was a bit sharp - quite refreshing though. I didn't spice the corned beef as much as I normally would and the flavour was a bit lost on the sandwich. None-the-less it was an okay and easy Sunday dinner.

BBQ Pork Noodle Salad (by Biggs)

I work in Chinatown so spend my lunchtimes being temped by the BBQ ducks and pork loins hanging in the butchers window. Since it's a Saturday I had time to stroll down to our local butcher who specialises in such things and bought a BBQ pork loin to add to this salad. I could try making it myself I guess but why bother when it's done so deliciously by a very smiley Mr Hong Lee.

Other things in the salad were a bunch of different greens (I don't know the specifics, they came in a packet), sugar snap peas, capsicum, pickled ginger, chili, vermicelli rice noodles and a dressing of rice vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, lime juice and chili. 

The recipe said to crumble Japanese rice crackers over the top but I didn't know what that meant so instead I just got G and I some Tao Kae Noi tempura seaweed crackers as an afternoon snack. They were great, as was dinner. The noodles were slippery to the point of making dinner quite difficult to eat but we struggled through. 

Aussie Burger (by G)

As a counter to Biggs' English burger I decided to make an Aussie burger and take a blurry photo of it.

The chicken was seasoned according to a secret copycat recipe that I found here.  Despite how insistent the copycat was that all the seasonings must be exactly as stated in the recipe (and you can tell he's serious because the recipe instructions are written in capitals), I could not find Dalmatian Rubbed Sage, Jamaican Ground Ginger, Winter Savoury or Egg White Powder and I completely forgot to look for Fenugreek.

Anyway, apart from the things I couldn't get, I made some substitutions and prepared the chicken according to the recipe. Brined it in salt and MSG (as a substitute to Accent), doused it in the flour, herb and spice mixture then shallow fried it (in substitution to deep frying it).  The coating on the chicken was not as thick as I would have liked but the copycat recipe dude insisted that I ' DO NOT DOUBLE-BREAD CHICKEN SINCE IT PLACES AN EXCESS OF SODIUM AND SPICES ONTO FINAL PRODUCT AND COMPROMISES AUTHENTICITY'.

The crispy onions were battered, then crumbed, then shallow fried and turned out pretty crispy (if not a little burned).

After that it was just a matter of topping a sesame bun with some lettuce, cheese (I chose Havarti for some reason), beetroot, the chicken, some barbeque sauce and the onions).

The burger was okay. The chicken was not much like the real thing (I take the blame for that) but it did leave an authentic weird, slick coating in my mouth.

Indian-spiced Shepard's Pie (by Biggs)

I couldn't sleep the other night because my mind was racing thinking of various things I could cook for dinner now that I have to do it every second night. Eventually I thought the Internet must have some sort of recipe roulette type website and drifted soundly off to sleep.

Turns out Recipe Roulette is a thing so I spun.....and won. The recipe that came up was an Indian-spiced Shepard's Pie. Initially I thought it wasn't a recipe well suited to the heat-wave weather we've been experiencing but I also thought it would be super tasty. And, it was.

I fried off some lamb, onions and carrot before adding garam masala, chicken stock and peas. At the same time I cooked up some diced potato then fried it with turmeric and coriander. I dumped the later on the former, squeezed some lemon over the top and jammed the whole lot in the over.

I can't take the credit for this one but fuck me it was good. Thanks Recipe Roulette!

Stuffed Pork Medallions (by G)

I was too busy today to think about what to have for dinner so I winged it at the supermarket.  We ended up with pork medallions stuffed with pork sausage, shallot, parmesan cheese and sage powder. They were fried and then finished in the oven.

For healthfulness we had some carrot, baby corn and mushroom fried in butter and oil.  There was also an attempt at a kind of potato rosti thing - it didn't much work out so I tried to hide it under the pork.

The stuffing was not as flavourful as I'd hoped and the pork a little dryer than ideal - it would have benefited from a bit of gravy - alas there was none.

Chorizo, Corn and Red Kidney Bean Salad Tortillas (by Biggs)

This is the first time I've been responsible for cooking on Tortilla Tuesday and I was definitely feeling the pressure. I was in a bit of a frazzle not knowing which direction to go in with the tortillas but did quickly decide I was going to rely on packet tortillas for my first try.

I stupidly said that if Morimoto has a tortilla recipe I'd make that. Turns out, of course, Morimoto has a tortilla recipe. Saga Wagyu tortillas to be precise. You may note that we're not eating Saga Wagyu tortillas this evening and the excuse I'm using is that the recipe came with a warning...."consumption of raw or undercooked meat may substantially increase the risk of foodborne illness". I'll leave that for a time when our kitchen is in a more orderly state and we don't have to go to work the next day.

When I was thinking what to make I remembered that chorizo is quite a delicious thing and we've never had sausage tortillas, regardless of G's deep love for them, so went in that direction. Stuffed into the tortillas tonight was chorizo sausages, red kidney beans, fresh corn, tomatoes, red onion, coriander and avocado. I dressed the mix with oil, lime zest and juice, red wine vinegar and cumin.

I was pretty happy with my first tortilla effort, they were pretty fresh and tasty, G ate seven of them. I was hoping for a bit more flavour from them but we quickly fixed this by adding magic savoury Koon Yick Wah Kee chili sauce.

Salmon Wellington with Mash and Veg (by G)

Somewhere or other (possibly 'The Great British Bake-off'), I saw someone make a salmon Wellington. Initially it disconcerted me a bit because it sounds like a terrible rip off of a classic recipe then, festering in the 42 degree heat, I thought some light with salmon and perhaps a nice salad could be a good thing.

Today, however, I got stuck in a thunder storm and froze my nips off in the cryogenically refrigerated supermarket and decided that mashed potato and some veg would be a better option. Then I spent ages trying to find leeks and was ultimately unsuccessful and then I thought it would be better to just give up on life and go to bed - but didn't.

Instead of fried leeks and garlic I fried a brown onion and shallot and added mirin instead of white wine. Then I added some vinegar because the mirin was too sweet.  Then I wrapped a couple of skinless salmon pieces in puff pastry along with the onion mix and baked them in the oven for about half an hour.

I over cooked the snow peas and carrots - and also the potatoes for the mash. I thought it was all okay - the mash tasted a bit weird, possibly because of the white pepper I added, or perhaps the tasty cheese.

Hot English Mustard and Coleslaw Chicken Burger (by Biggs)

Well, I've had a pretty good run and was bound to fail at some point. Tonight I failed. I feel like G might regret this cooking equity thing we've got going.

We've been watching a feckload of cricket over the past few weeks and have therefore seen a feckload of advertisements from the sponsors. One particular sponsor has been selling chicken burgers.....an Aussie Burger vs an English Burger. Whist it didn't make me go and buy one it did make me decide to "cook" one.

Every time I saw the ad I mentioned that the hot English mustard and coleslaw burger really appealed to me. I knew I should have made it properly....make my own coleslaw, batter the chicken myself and perhaps even bake some bread.

Instead I bought white bread rolls, chicken in a box (41% chicken), packet coleslaw, mayo and mild English mustard (because G didn't handle the hot English mustard very well last time I used it and I'm guessing that's what the cricket sponsor uses also).

G was initially excited because he could smell chicken nuggets which he's a fan of. But, I have to admit this burger was a bit average. It was fairly tasteless and all a bit soft and texture-less.

Oddball Curries (by G)

For some reason (I don't recall why), I decided I wanted to make a selection of curries for dinner tonight.  I was searching on the web and came across an Egg Curry recipe which looked pretty interesting (and I think eggs complete a meal) so I decided to look for another oddball curry. Crab Meat curry - check.  I thought I should also do a starch - not rice - as filler so decided on devilled potatoes.

The Egg Curry was the easiest.  Boiled eggs with a curry sauce of onion, commercial curry paste, tomato, peas and yoghurt. Easy-peasy - oddly sweet given the ingredients.

The devilled potatoes were a variation on something I've cooked a couple of times before - boiled potatoes fried in ghee with red onion, green chilli, mustard seeds, garlic, chilli flakes, Maldive fish, turmeric and tomato. That was the plan anyway but I couldn't find curry leaves, I was going to substitute the Maldive fish (which I believe is dried tuna) with shrimp paste but forgot, I also forgot the turmeric and garlic and added some left over coriander - it was pretty good regardless.

The Crab curry was a bit more involved - not too much - the sauce was a mix of fennel seeds, mustard seeds, cardamom, cumin seeds, ginger, garlic (I remembered for this one), red chilli, turmeric (remembered), lemon juice, coriander and coconut milk. That is then simmered with the dark crab meat. Five minutes from the end the white crab meat is added... the crab bit is a bit theoretical because I couldn't find any fresh crab so I got the tinned stuff.  It was not too bad, it would have been handy if I'd also bought a can opener because I broke our only one a couple of weeks ago trying to open my money box - a couple of forceful knife jabs to the top did the trick though.  This was my favourite of the curries. I didn't tell Biggs what it was until after she'd tried it - from out of the corner of my eye I could see she was pretty suspicious while eating it - like I might have cooked up her 'My Little Pony' collection and fed it to her.

Ginger Chicken (by Biggs)

Tonight I made a version of ginger chicken. I figured the ginger, white meat and vegetables might be marginally more healthy than what we ate throughout the festive season.

I fried off some chicken, then fried off a lot of ginger, a lot of garlic, a lot of spring onion, some capsicum and broccoli. 

I added some hokkien noodles as well as a sauce of fish sauce, soy sauce, lime juice and a couple of bird's eye chillies then mixed in some chopped coriander. 

My friend Fi makes an excellent ginger chicken but this one really didn't compare. The ginger tasted raw and the whole thing wasn't very balanced but, it was okay.

I bet G is already regretting letting me cook every second night.

Lamb (by G)

What can I say about this one - other than, it looks fucking delicious!  Okay, it didn't photograph well but it was pretty good.

I seasoned and sealed a lamb loin then put it on a bed of cubed packet vegetables and some mushrooms that had been lightly fried in butter - then put that in the oven to cook the meat and the vegetables through.

For a sauce I fried shallots (also in butter) added the last of the cognac (flamed it) then added some chicken stock and just simmered it down until it was thick (then added butter to give it a bit of gloss).

Then I arranged it all elegantly on a plate and we ate it.  The lamb was nice, the sauce was like a salty French onion soup - a winning combination.

Cajun Chicken (by Biggs)

Okay, I know you've seen this one before on the blog but there were a number of factors that lead me to cooking Cajun chicken with sweet potato salad.

1) I've been drunk for about a week now and this is my go-to easy meal to make
2) We've got visitors and this is what I always cook when friends come over for dinner
3) G and I have decided we're going to share the cooking more equitably this year which means I have to cook every second night.....so, naturally, I panicked and went with what I'm familiar with

I think this is a stupid idea on G's part. I can cook and enjoy cooking but if it becomes a chore I'm going to pump out some fairly stock standard dinners after not too long......steak and salad, steak and veges, pasta....luck G loves sausages.

The Cajun chicken was breast meat sliced into bite-sized pieces and coated in Cajun seasoning from a jar. The salad was spinach, cumin roasted sweet potato, pine nuts, bacon and feta with a dressing of juice, tahini and honey.

Everyone seemed to enjoy it. The dressing was a bit wacky because the only juice available in the house was a tropical juice leftover from the Christmas day punch.