Tasting Australia

the price of procrastination!!!!

ahhhhhhh!!! it's nearly over!!!!!! I had wanted to check it two weeks ago..but have been putting it off!!!!

what am i talking about???

Tasting Australia...a week long fiesta of foodie heaven!! Wine tastings, cooking demostrations by renowned chefs, special menus, markets and fair days, talks about different types of cuisine..and one which i was particularly keen on...a talk on "Umami" by Barbara Santich (been wanting to meet her in person ever since i read her book, "Looking for flavour"...) and the talk was last night.......ahhhhhhhhh...pain..!!!!

Quick!! The festival ends on Sunday!!!

Click here to find out more.... !

Quick and Easy Black Sesame Paste

Black sesame is said to be good for keeping hair dark and glossy and preventing the growth of white hairs. Once again..the chinese and our penchant for associating like-coloured foods to supposed health benefits...

But i was surprised not to find a recipe on my favourite Asian food blogs....

After some tweaking and experimenting, ta-dah!!! Quick and easy black sesame paste!!! (U do need a food processor or blender though...)

ingredients for 2:
1/2 cup cooked rice
1/4 grounded black sesame seeds (i bought mine in a packet but you can also get whole black sesame seeds and toast them slightly)
2 tbs sugar
1 to 2 cups boiling water (more or less depending on your preference)

directions:
Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan.
Blend with hand blender or food processer til smooth.
Bring to the boil and stir constantly to prevent burning/ sticking.
Serve warm.

Crab and snow pea Somen

Presenting what i have been eating the entire weekend...crab somen!
Various reasons...the top one being that i cooked too much....and was too busy/ stressed with assignments to ask friends over to share it..
it's great for bringing to potlucks i reckon...cos it's a cold dish and very easy to make...takes less than 30 minutes in total, including washing up!



ingredients
400g somen
175 g canned crab meat, brine reserved
150 g snow pea sprouts, trimmed
6 green onions, chopped finely
1 tbs toasted white sesame seeds
1 can corn kernels (optional)
handful bonito flakes (optional)

dressing
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup rice vinegar
3 tbs soy sauce
3 tbs sugar
1 tbs sesame oil
brine from crab

combine in screw top jar and shake well until sugar dissolves.

serves 6

directions
1. cook somen in large saucepan of boiling water until just tender, drain and rinse noodles under cold water. Cut noodles with scissors to make them more manageable.

2. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. Add dressing. Toss. Serve chilled and garnish with bonito flakes.

White Fungus Apple dessert

recipe as requested by Qin...

from Kuali by Amy Beh

Ingredients
2 red Fuji apples, skinned, cored and cubed
1 whole white fungus, soaked for 5–10 minutes and cut into small pieces
1 tbsp each of bitter and sweet almonds
3 honey dates (mat choe) (do not substitute with red dates...the taste is quite different)
100g rock sugar (i used 70g, it was sweet enough for us..)
1.5 litres water
2 screwpine (pandan) leaves, shredded and knotted

Method
1. Bring water to a boil and add apples, white fungus and bitter and sweet almonds. Cook for 5 minutes.

2. Add honey dates, rock sugar and screwpine leaves and simmer for 35-40 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

comments:
very easy to make...refreshing and makes u think u r doing something good for ur body...hee..chinese desserts are so much more healthier yar??

Red bean brownies! LOW FAT!!!**

INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup butter (55g)
55g red bean paste
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup macademia nuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour (using cocoa powder) an 8 inch square pan.
In a large saucepan, melt 1/4 cup butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, red bean paste, eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup flour, salt, and baking powder. Add nuts if using. Spread batter into prepared pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not overcook.

Recipe modified from here

Comments:
when i read somewhere that beans can be used as to replace fat in recipes, i was very intrigued with the theory and dug out my most reliable brownie recipe to test it out. I made two batches, one regular and one with half fat, half red bean paste.
Out ff 10 people, only 1 could guess correctly which one was the low fat brownie and she wasn't very sure too...

:) So it's a success!!!

Oh...how to cook the red bean paste?? Hmmm...for the quantity required in this recipe, i reckon u need only about 2 tbs raw red beans...soak them overnight, discard the water and then boil and then simmer them til they r soft...secret is to not add too much water initially, just an inch over them is fine...otherwise they'll stay hard..drain and mash and they r ready to be used.

**50% of the fat in this recipe has been replaced with protein with no discernible change in taste or texture!! it's about 4.5g per serve ... 4.5 g is slightly less than a tsp of fat...for brownies, that's considered v good...haa...fudge brownies can have up to 35g ???!!! Almost 2 tablespoons of fat in one slice...wow...can't believe it myself too... :P

Stir-Fried Hokkien Noodles with Seafood

You know...if i don't follow recipes, i'd most probably cook with the same condiments over and over again and produce dishes which taste pretty similar..i m not a fan of 'sourish' flavours, so i tend not to use vinegar very much in my cooking...but the following recipe turned out so well that i m a new fan of malt vinegar!!!

this is one of Kylie Kwong's recipe..even though as Mimi has commented, her recipes seem pretty similar (most feature sze chuan pepper), i am very surprised and suitably impressed by the combination of flavours..!



INGREDIENTS

• 400 g assorted seafood (i used squid rings and devined prawns)
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 medium-sized red onion, finely sliced
• 12 ginger slices
• 3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
• 1 × 450 g packet fresh Hokkien noodles
• 2 tablespoons shao hsing wine or dry sherry
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon malt vinegar
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• handful of black fungus, sliced
• 1 cup spring onion (scallion) julienne
• 1/2 cup of grated carrot
2 tbls chilli flakes
handful fried shallots
handful coriander

DIRECTIONS

Heat half the oil in a hot wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Add seafood and briskly fry until lightly browned. Remove from wok and set aside. (i reserved the oil as well...as my seafood was quite wet...the oil turned a milky colour...so it looked like stock to me.. wahahah... :P )

Add remaining oil to hot wok with onion, ginger, garlic and chilli flakes and stir-fry for 1 minute or until onion is lightly browned. Toss in noodles, reserved seafood, wine or sherry, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and sesame oil and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Finally add black fungus and carrots, half the spring onion and stir-fry for a further 30 seconds or until prawns are just cooked through and noodles are hot.

Arrange noodles in bowls, top with remaining spring onions, fried shallots and coriander. Serve immediately.

comments: brought this dish to George's 21st cos he likes seafood....Siewli commented that the noodles were quite spicy and was laughed at by the other girls...I must clarify..it is really my fault...cos i doubled the recipe and there were so much noodles that i think i must have not stirred through the chilli evenly...and some portions were much more spicer... :P
oh...and try the noodles, if u find that they r not flavourful enough, just add another portion of the seasoning (shao hsing wine, light soy sauce, malt vinegar, white sugar, sesame oil).

sweet corn and crab meat soup

Simplified from Kylie Kwong's recipe

Ingredients:

1 can corn kernels
2 tablespoons oil
½ white onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons ginger,julienned
1 garlic clove,minced
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup shao hsing wine
1¾ L chinese chicken stock** (See recipe below)
1 can crab meat (175g)
1½ teaspoons light soy sauce
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
1 tablespoon finely sliced green shallot
pinch of ground white pepper
cornflour mixture (around 4 tbs corn starch to 8 tbs cold water)

Method
1 Heat oil in a heavy-based pot and sauté onions, ginger, garlic and salt for 5 minutes.
2 Add wine and simmer until it has reduced by half.
3 Stir in corn and stock, bring to the boil.
4. Add corn starch mixture to achieve desired consistency.
5 Stir through crabmeat and soy sauce, then lower heat and slowly pour the beaten eggs into the soup in a thin stream, stirring constantly with a fork.
6 Remove soup from the heat as soon as you see the eggs forming fine ‘ribbons’.
7 Serve the soup in bowls, garnished with shallots and pepper.

serves 8 as a starter

Comments: The picture really doesn't do this soup justice!! With the addition of some tang hoon, bean sprouts and vinegar, you can definitely serve this as a mock shark's fin soup....i used to love sharks' fin soup as a child....my dad would let me order it whenever we went to a Chinese restaurant...i can't say why i liked it so much...i think mainly cos it was one of the most expensive items on the menu! I was spoilt, wasn't i??!!
Nowadays, of course we don't eat shark fins as much cos it's a very cruel n sharks also contain high levels of mercury..
I digress again...the point of comparing it to the shark fin's soup was to highlight the fact that this soup is very 'sweet' in the umami sense..and really pretty simple to make!
Please note that the proportion for the cornstarch mixture is a guess-timate...do add more if needed...just make sure that the cornstarch is dissolved in some cold water before adding...the original recipe didn't have it..so you can omit the cornstarch altogether if you prefer a clearer and lighter soup. :)

**Chicken stock:
ingredients:
1 chicken rack, blanched
2 L water
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 tsp white peppercorns
2 bay leaves
2 pieces ginger
method:
Snip off the fatty bits on the bones and blanch in boiling water.
Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover.
Simmer for 2 hours. Skim off scum (the white stuff and bubbles that gathers on the surface) occasionally.

Comments: This stock is very clean tasting and can be used for a variety of purposes. If you have extra, just freeze it in ice cube trays. Use in stir frys and any recipe which calls for water...it adds that extra 'oomphf'.You can also use it to cook rice. Add some ginger, garlic and pandan leaves and it'll be very similar to hainan chicken rice. And you can also use the bones for cooking porridge or congee..
And now i must do my 'auntie' spiel...the chicken bones were from Lenard's. They're only 25 cents each!! SO CHEAP!! Ha....my dinner mates didn't understand my enthusiasm for the chicken bones...i guess I just get excited when i can make something instead of buying it...in this case, making stock from scratch and not having to pay 3 bucks for a small tetra pack...! :P