Escudella (by Biggs)

When looking for dinner inspiration last week I asked G to name a country with the plan to make a meal inspired by the national dish of that country. For personal reasons G chose Andorra (a plot of land between Spain and France) so I found myself making Escudella.

I found the recipe on a lady's blog and it looked like the sort of meal our household enjoys in the Wintertime. Fortunately, or allegedly more like it, it's the Wintertime. I needed to find an afternoon when I would be home with enough time to cook it so G agreed to swap cooking nights with me today.

This stew is amazing because it has EVERYTHING in it - pork sausage meat-balls, chicken, prosciutto, cabbage, potato, rice, pasta, chickpeas and cannellini beans. That's pretty much how it works too dump it all in a pot and cook it for a couple of hours....some things, like the pasta, you put in at a later stage.

The flavour in the stock came from marrow and bacon bones. It was meant to come from marrow and ham bones but my butcher didn't have a ham bone. They weren't sure initially if they had marrow bones but checked out the back and returned with a giant garbage bag to search thorough. Sign of an excellent butcher right there!

Dinner was a winner. Thanks Andorra!

Kai Kwam (by Biggs)

What's Kai Kwam you ask?

Fried eggs stuffed with pork and seafood! That's what Kai Kwam is.

I wanted to cook something a bit challenging and interesting for dinner so opened up Charmaine Soloman's The Complete Asian Cookbook so see what her thoughts on the matter were. The first page I opened to mentioned Kai Kwam and I was convinced it was a great idea. It turned out not to be a terrible idea but it sure was a bit wacky.

The way it works is that boiled eggs get stuffed with a mix of pork, prawns, crab, coriander, egg yolks, fish sauce and coconut milk. Then I battered them and fried them. I couldn't see how the batter was going to stay on the eggs and I certainly couldn't see how the eggs were ever possibly going to stay in one piece. But, it sort of did and they sort of did.

I was home a bit late from work so was under the pump to get dinner on the table. As a result almost everything went wrong while I was prepping the meal. The prawn guts got everywhere and made me gag, I burnt myself on the pork, then the can of crab spontaneously exploded all over me. Unrelated to dinner, when I went upstairs to change my clothes after the crab disaster, I discovered an animal had crapped all over my room at some stage throughout the day. It was a fairly gross hour of my life.

Whilst this wasn't the tastiest thing I've ever had (honestly, it really tasted a little bit strange) I was really happy that I tried something new and challenged myself a little. It was quite satisfying. More satisfying was that we got to have a dessert of left over pork rashers.

Crumbed Chicken, Mushrooms, Potatoes and Braised Fennel (by G)

Having discovered the joys of brining I've decided to brine at every opportunity. 

I had some chicken marylands and wings in the freezer so I defrosted them yesterday and stuck them in some brine.  This morning I de-brined the chicken and left it in the fridge to dry a little. This afternoon I tempered the chicken to bring it up to room temperature then dusted it in flour, dipped it in an egg wash (egg and vegetable stock - that was my own imagining) then crumbed it in Krummies brand wholemeal bread crumbs mixed with salt, pepper, garlic powder and some dried parsley flakes.

I was trying to use up some of the food I already had at home so I braised some fennel in butter and vegetable stock, blanched some potatoes and fried them in peanut oil. I also cooked some mushrooms (fresh bought) in butter and oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and mixed with chopped garlic, chilli flakes, lemon thyme and dried parsley.

I pulled the trigger a bit early on the potatoes - after they were fried they sat around for a bit before being re-heated in the oven (along with some salt, pepper, chilli flakes and lemon thyme). They turned out a bit buffet-style-roast, but not to worry.

The braised fennel was not great - I blame the fact I didn't use all that much butter and used vegetable stock instead of something more flavourful like chicken stock.

The chicken turned out pretty great (crispy on the outside despite being a bit powdery) and moist (not to mention cooked) on the inside.

Pork and Noodles (by Biggs)

So, I just realised I cooked essentially the same dinner for two of my cooking nights in a row. Luckily, G and I like pork and noodles.

I originally had a slow-cooked vegetarian number planned but the day got a little haphazard and by the time I got home, slow-cooked was going to be just a little too slow. Instead I realied on my comfort meal of pork, noodles and veges....this dinner has definitely been on the blog before.

The pork was little loin medallions which were nice and tender. I cooked them perfectly (in my opinion - a little over as I like it)....four minutes on one side, four minutes on the other side and four minutes resting. I also had a nifty idea to steam the carrots and beans in vegetable stock which G seemed to enjoy.

Stay tuned for slow-cooked vegetarian in our near future.

  

TortillaTuesday (by G)

I had been dreaming for some days about a meal that would be so awesome it would shut down the world-wide-web for good. My plan was to make a kind of empanada with maize flour instead of flour then deep fry them to crispy perfection - how awesome would that be?

Unfortunately, when I made a tester, the corn tortillas I had made fresh started to split and wouldn't seal up properly for the deep frying. Rather than flail and fail I decided to deep-fry the corn tortillas and just serve the meat and dippings on the side.

I'm so deflated with lack of execution on the plan that I don't much feel like going into too much more detail.

There was 2 types of meat (pork mince and chicken thigh) simmered to tender with red onion, oregano, paprika, cumin and chicken stock. There was a guacamole and a tomato salsa each made with jalapeno, red onion, coriander, lime juice and such - also some sour cream with a dusting of cumin and salt.

Pork Stir Fry (by Biggs)

I'm struggling keeping to my (very slender) food budget this fortnight and G suggested "noodles, a little bit of meat and a lot of vegetables" is always affordable. Turned out he was right.

Buying budget pork allowed me to buy the fanciest of vegetables - asparagus and snow peas. I fried off the pork, then some onion and garlic. I added some seasame oil, then the vegetables. A splash of soy sauce helped things along a bit. In the end I coated everything up with oyster sauce.

I then diligently over-cooked some rice noodles to stodge the whole thing up.

Shimeji Mushroom Risotto (by G)

With all the different things we've cooked since the blog started I couldn't remember if we'd had risotto yet. Possibly - and it is certainly something I could have checked on - but I decided to do one anyway.  I was looking to do this meal to a budget, which I probably managed to do if you consider that I didn't use all the rice or butter - though I did have some parmesan and saffron already, so it probably wasn't to budget after all.

The risotto was pretty standard - fry mushrooms, set aside. Fry shallots, mix in rice to coat in oil, add wine (I didn't have wine so I used sake), then ladle in stock until the rice is cooked then add the mushrooms and parmesan.

For some reason I decided not to cook the rice all the way through but it was pretty close.  I has also intended to have some brined chicken legs on the side, but they didn't cook in time...

 

...so we had them as a snack later.