A Gastronomical Voyage in Melbourne: Recipes

Taiwanese Egg Pancakes for Breakfast

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 04:17:15 GMT

Every year when I go to Taipei, a visit to the local breakfast stall near my Grandparents house in Ximending is essential at least once. There, we usually get a few scorching sweetened soya bean milk in large paper cups or in clear plastic bags to go, Chinese Fried Doughnut sticks (YouTiao) and fried egg pancakes, all made fresh to order. I've gotten my husband hook on these local delicacy as well that he reminds me if we are close to the end of our trip in Taipei and we haven't gone to the stall yet.

In Melbourne, you can get these in Taiwanese cuisine cafes but they are not the same... somehow the Taiwanese ones are more fluffy and floury. I've watched them cook it a few times, and I believe the fluffiness comes from adding a little surplus egg mixture into the pan while the pancake is cooking.

My version is not as authentic as they make the thin pastry from scratch. I use the widely available plain roti bread from Asian grocery stores. The important thing here is to take the roti bread out of the fridge about 30minute earlier so that they soften. Also unfold them to get as thin a roti slice as you possibly can so you're getting more egg than pancake per serve.

Once you have prepared the roti, dip the slices into your egg mix (I used two eggs in this instance). Let it soak for about 10 sec and make sure that the whole of the roti bread is soaked with egg mix. For pan-frying and for Asian cuisine I usually use peanut oil for flavour.

After you've placed the egg pancakes on the pan, add a little egg mixture on time. Preferrably more evenly than I have!

End result - fluffy Taiwanese egg pancakes! Usually you should have this with thick soya sauce, but I didn't have any so I had it with Maggi Seasoning, which is just as good. I wished I had a nice cold soya bean milk drink too! Oh well.. two additional items for the grocery list.

Hainanese Chicken Rice & Chicken Vegie Soup

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:20:03 GMT

Mucking Around Part II

I was craving for hainanese chicken rice... but I don't like the ones served in the restaurants because I actually don't like to eat chicken still on its bones and skin on. I bought a bottle of hainanese chicken rice mix just for this purpose. The mix is for adding to raw rice and water in a conventional rice cooker... It will give the rice a oily ginger and chicken flavour. I found the mixture a bit salt so I reduced the quantity to add in my rice...

You can get this and similar products from any good Asian groceries.

Following roughly the recipe on the back of the bottle, I used the pressure cooker to cook my Lilydale organic chicken breasts in.. It took less than 10 minute and the meat was falling about. I then soaked the chicken in cold boiled water.

I mixed 1 part sesame oil to 3 part sauce sauce together and added some cropped spring onion as the sauce to add to the chicken pieces. Experiment with the sauce to taste. Break up the cooled chicken into bite-size pieces... pour the sauce over and serve it with the rice I had it for lunch the next day.

Then what to do with the filtered chicken soup??

I cropped up one onion, two carrots, and two potatoes.

Soaked a few dried shitake mushrooms and put the soup and all the vegetables back into the pressure cooker to make a chicken and vegie soup... When it's boiled and the vegies are all soft. Add salt to taste...

My Impromptu Chicken and Vegetable Soup.. look at the chicken oil Yum!

Mucking Around

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 04:50:40 GMT

I've been doing a bit of this and that these few weeks.... Mainly stressing about a dinner party in Hampton last Sunday. I was in charge of the dessert, and I decided to use the pannacotta and crostoli recipes from Maurizio Terzini: Something Italian. The pannacotta recipe is not easy as I found out.... My first attempt, without any proper measurement and not all the ingredients... came out too creamy and little stiffer than I wanted. I even wasted cream because I whipped it too hard with a hand beater and turned the cream to butter... I had to send M out for another tub. Likewise, the crostoli had a bitter lemony taste to it.... Armed with the right ingredients, I was suppose to prepare the dessert on Saturday ready for Sunday but had been so busy doing other things that I remembered at 12am Sunday that I needed to make the pannacotta for it to set properly in time!

So in my pajamas, I made the pannacotta...while waiting for the pannacotta mixture to cool, I hand-whipped the cream.... I think this is really the only way to whip cream.. it takes a lot of effort but the result is worth it - smooth soft cream at just the right consistency. I actually changed the recipe a little - decreasing the sugar, adding one 1/2 more vanilla sticks and instead of 8 gelatine leaves I used 7. I also put the Bortylis in the cooking part rather than at the end. I read an article in Epicure today about the Innocent Bystander Pink Moscato 2006... I might make a pannacotta with lots of that... as it sounds delicious... "A naughty pale pink with sweet grapey, apple flavours, seductively presents as a subtle, low 6.4% alcohol, mouth tingling, crown sealed fizz. Drink this summer when young and fresh. Yummy with strawberries and ice cream or just to sip on around the pool."

OH yes, the pannacotta and crostoli were a success... (I served chilled thin slices of riped mangoes with it) even after a multi-course dinner they was a refreshing dessert and helped us slow the absorption of some very delicious red wine that night. Anna and Dave made fantastic side dishs and slow cook mains... My favourite was the roast duck where the meat just fell off the bones and melted in your mouth. Second was the dumplings modified from a recipe from Harumi Kurihara: Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking... Of course third was the pannacotta!

Here is the official menu from Sunday:

*We didn't make the linguine because we decided that there was too much food already.

No pictures from the night, sorry... we ate everything too quickly...

Brown Garlic & Parsley Butter Sauce Swordfish

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 03:47:39 GMT

We were eating in last night and I wanted to have seared tuna, with potato salad. I saw these chunky pieces of tuna at DJ food court last week and the gentleman before me took them all.. so I was kicking myself for letting him go before me. But DJ didn't have any tuna today so I settled for swordfish for pan-frying. I got some potato bacon and mustard salad, some pine nuts, a little tiny jar of salmon roe and skipped home.

Stephanie Alexander's "A Cook's Companion" is just a fabulous book for a novel cook like me. I looked up the "Fish" section and found a recipe for Brown butter sauce for pan-fried fish. I varied it a little as I didn't have any fresh lemons in the house... to make it a garlic sauce.

M & I prepared some baby spinach for sides, and I pan-fried some onions and brown mushrooms with lots of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

M then pan-friend the swordfish to perfection in half butter half olive oil. It took probably about 10 minutes to cook each piece. While M did that, I made the sauce with unsalted butter, fresh chopped parsley and lots and lots of chopped garlic. Cook until brown and serve on top of swordfish piping hot!

Last but not least, we placed some delicious salmon roe on top of the swordfish to flavour and garnish. Don't need salt if you have the roe.

Delicious!

Perfect Paella

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 22:37:21 GMT

"Perfect" Paella

My sister came over for dinner and I saw an article a few days before
about how to cook the perfect paella, so I thought I would give the
dinner a Spanish theme. On the menu:

Pan Fried Saganaki Haloumi
Garlic brown mushrooms and chorizos (with lots of extra virgin olive
oil)
Spanish omelette
Chicken, chorizo and mixed seafood paella (about 20 saffron strains :P)

All the ingredients were bought from the DJ Food Court.
We followed The Age recipe with some creative liberty.
We cooked the paella in my sister's scanpan. Fantastic tool, got to get
me one of those.
I should have put the seafood just before I put the paella in the oven.

It took us 2 hours to cook but then I am a slow cutter.

Hopefully it will take less time next time.

A great success - yum!!!