marion grasby's sesame tuna with ponzu

Weeknight dinners tend to be simple affairs in our household; often we cook enough to last more than one meal and things like spaghetti bolognese, baked chicken wings and fried rice are those staples we constantly have on rotation. Recently, my aunty introduced my mum to frozen salmon and tuna fillets at the supermarket (mum then got me some) and they've been a real treat. Take them out in the morning to defrost in the fridge and they're ready by the time you need to cook at night. So when I flicked through Marion Grasby's 'Asia Express' and saw the recipe for Sesame Tuna with Ponzu, I knew I was going to make this one soon.

With the defrosted tuna pieces, sprinke with salt and coat in sesame seeds. I only had white sesame seeds but Marion recommends a blend of black and white in her recipe. Heat oil in a pan and cook the tuna for about 2 minutes each side.

Marion's recipe for ponzu sauce is a combo of 1 finely sliced spring onion, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp rice vinegar, grated zest of 1 lemon,  2tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp honey, 1 tsp wasabi paste and 1 tsp freshly grated ginger all whisked together.

Here's how the tuna looks in the book if you have the black sesame seeds. I though the white sesame seeds already gave it plenty of flavour.

We had our tuna steaks with rice and it's actually a very filling meal. Admittedly frozen tuna steaks aren't as great as fresh ones but if you happen to be in the supermarket, do grab a bag of the frozen salmon steaks. You can hardly tell the difference with the salmon.

Anyhow, our rangehood in the kitchen decided to explode over the weekend so this might be a mini break from any cooking posts for the moment until we get that fixed.  Though truth be told, I would've been more sad had our oven broken down as I wouldn't be able to do any baking!

baked chicken wings in thick sauce

Had the opportunity to catch up with a few friends yesterday and one friend who I haven't seen in ages cause she's been overseas even commented that I don't seem to go out so much these days. Made me think for a moment and she's probably right; I suppose I have turned into somewhat of a homebody. Home-cooked meals, DVDs and a glass of cider has turned into one of my favourite past-times with the hubby. I do miss seeing friends though so hopefully we'll be opening up our home to a few dinner parties in the near future.

So yes, you'll probably see a few less restaurant posts on this blog but more home-cooked dinners which the boy and I insist on making happen most days. It gives us a routine, we eat better and there's the satisfaction of cooking a tasty dish together (and grudgingly I have to admit, the boy is turning into the better cook). Whilst I'll be following the recipe to the letter, the boy will improvise and create his own dishes but that's how we differ and complement each other.

For some tasty baked chicken wings, I have the answer for you in this recipe. In a clean plastic bag, make a marinade of 4 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tsp sugar and 2 tsp salt. Add 10 chicken wings & bind the bag. Leave in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight. Roll the bag from time to time to marinate the wings evenly. Preheat oven to 220 degrees and place the chicken wings in a baking tin and bake for approx. 20 minutes, turning the wings halfway.

For a truly 'Hong Kong style' of eating, smear the wings with honey and bake for  a few minutes more before serving. Love the sticky goodness of honey on soy sauce chicken wings.

So you might be wondering how two people can eat 10 chicken wings in the one meal...erm, here's the story and it's quite funny. The story is that we usually buy wings in kilos. Asked the boy one day if I should split the 1kg bags of wings we buy into two but when I told him that there would only be 5 chicken wings between the two of us, he stopped me from portioning them out, said he'd rather eat all of them. Thinking maybe we might need to start buying them by the wing so we don't get into our comfort zones and overeat!

transparent noodles with prawns

The average Asian supermarket is full of wonders, you never know what you might find down those aisles and well, I probably spend too much time perusing those shelves and buying way too many things (as one does of course). So you see, I was particularly excited to discover the big bags of dried black fungus on a recent shopping trip to New Yen Yen Supermarket in Eastwood. First of all, I love mushrooms and black fungus is one of those things I've grown up eating in stir fries, braises, casseroles and to this day, it's one of those things I'd pick out of a dish just because I love it so much. Put me with a dish of black fungus, I can polish it off for you too easily.

So it was that I wandered off home with my bag of black fungus in hand and found this recipe for transparent noodles with prawns - thought I'd throw in a bit more black fungus than the recipe actually asked for; which makes perfect sense when you love black fungus.

Defrost 200g medium-large raw prawns. Soak 125g Korean vermicelli in boiling water for 4-5 minutes or until soft. Drain the noodles and set aside. Soak a big handful of black fungus in boiling water for 4-5 minutes or until soft, then drain. Heat 1 tbsp of sunflower oil in a wok and stir fry 2-3 cloves chopped garlic over medium heat for 1-2 minutes or until lightly browned. Add the prawns with 3 tbsp lime juice, 1 tbsp light soy sauce and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the prawns turn pink. Add the vermicelli and fungus and cook for another 3 minutes. Remove from the heat, add 2 tbsp of lemograss paste, 3-4 finely chopped shallots, 2 chopped chilliies, and mix together.

Top off with coriander leaves and a few slices of red chilli.

This dish is like a salad (refreshing and comes with a slight chilli bite) but yet decently filling to serve up as a meal at dinner time. Recipe has been tweaked slightly from Hamyln's '200 Thai favourites' which is my latest go to book for meals - going through a bit of a Thai food phase at the moment and absolutely loving all the recipes in this book; everything has turned out spot on and they're quick recipes to make too. Anyway, more recipes/cooking adventures to follow!

korean style ddukboki spicy rice cake

Married life has certainly taught me a thing or two about food; how to shop for groceries, how to get the best prices, how to cook for two but most of all, how to be adventurous and cook up restaurant meals in the comfort of your own home. The boy and I have tried to be good and tend to cook dinner most nights; main reason being that if we cook enough we have lunch to bring to work the next day which ends up saving us a tonne of money (and it's healthier too)

Korean Spicy Rice Cake is one those things which I always order if I see it on the menu at a Korean restaurant. Usually it's only the boy who is brave enough to eat this with me because depending on how heavy handed the cook has been with the chilli, this one can come with some serious bite. Cooking it myself, I could see why.

Soak 1 package Korean rice cake in boiling water until softened. In a small bowl, mix together 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp chilli flakes, 1 tbsp minced garlic, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1/2 tsp ginger powder, 1 tsp salt and 3-4 tbsp gochujjang (Korean red pepper paste). In a large pot, boil 2 cups water, stir through the sauces until all dissolved. Add 3 sliced green onions, 1 pack sliced fishcake, 1/3 head of cabbage, and the soaked rice cakes and simmer for about 5 minutes until the sauce thickens. Once the sauce has thickened, the dish is ready to eat.

I'd say on a scale to 1-5 (5 being hot), this is probably a 4.5!

Surprised how easy this one was to make and reheated really well the next day in the microwave at work. A colleague of mine even commented how gourmet it looked and how adventurous I was but really, it takes just over 10 minutes to make from start to finish.

carrot & chorizo soup

As I was growing up, my mum's advice to me when it came to looking after myself had always been to know how to cook. She'd say 'You need to cook for your future husband otherwise what are you going to eat?' Fortunately, it seems mum and I have both been somewhat lucky and married husbands that are quite handy in the kitchen and actually don't mind doing a bit of the cooking; my own has been doing a disproportionate amount of the cooking over the last couple of weeks (which I'm ever grateful for).

To make this Carrot & Chorizo soup, heat 30g unsalted butter and 1 tbsp olive oil in a pot over medium heat. Cook 2 finely chopped onions and 2 finely chopped cloves of garlic for 5 minutes until softened. Add 5 coriander roots, 2tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground tumeric and 2 tsp cumin seeds and cook, stirring for 1-2 minutes. Add 1 kg chopped carrots, then cover and cook for 10 minutes until the carrots start to soften. Season with salt and pepper and then add 1.25L chicken stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer for 20 minutes until carrots are tender.

Cool slightly, then blend in batches until smooth. 

Always a tip to place your hand over the blender cover to make sure no nasty accidents happen (though I suggest a towel in between the hand and cover when you're dealing with hot soup).

The boy and I actually made this the night before we actually ate it to save a bit of time. 

To serve, heat a frying pan over medium heat, add 150g chopped chorizo and cook for 3-4 minutes until crisp. Serve the soup with chorizo and coriander leaves. This soup is absolutely divine and actually reminds me of a curry because of the spices; great for this winter weather and worked out well to take to work.

A huge thank you to M for the blender wedding gift. It's taken us a little while but we've finally cracked it open and have it sat proudly on our kitchen bench. Looking forward to breakfast smoothies, soups and other blended goodies - thanks again!

roasted lamb with potatoes, anchovies & garlic

Sunday nights have become roast nights in my household; it's probably the one day in the week when everyone's home and we all sit down at the dinner table to eat (and yes we all sit down till we finish all our food unlike weeknights when someone is finishing late or I'm off to the gym and standing over the kitchen bench scoffing down my food - bad I know!). And well, the cooking of the roast has been a bit of a collective effort, we all take turns and it works out to be a rather good arrangement - everyone gets a go and the roast always tastes spectacular in very different ways.

It was my turn this particular week and I used the 'Slow-roasted lamb shoulder with potatoes, anchovies and garlic' recipe found in 'The Thrifty Kitchen'. It's very simple! Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Rub 1.5kg lamb with freshly ground salt and pepper. Heat a heavy based roasting tin over medium heat, then add the lamb and brown all over. Take the lamb off the heat and set aside on a plate. Spread 1kg thinly sliced desiree potatoes and 2 thinly sliced red onions in alternate layers in the roasting tin, and nestle 3 heads of garlic (halved) in amongst the slices. Top with 4 anchovy fillets, 1 tbsp olive oil and 30g butter and season well with salt and pepper. Lay the browned lamb on top, sprinkle with 1 sprig rosemary and 1 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar, and pour over 2 cups water.

Cover the tin with foil and bake for 1 1/2 hours. Reduce the oven temperature to 160 degrees and remove the foil, then continue to cook for another 30 minutes. 

Allow to rest for 5 minutes and then carve. Serve the lamb with the vegetables and a head of roasted garlic per person.

Next time I'd probably reduce the cooking time about 15 minutes to have the lamb slightly rarer. Surprisingly the original recipe recommends a cooking time of 3 hours which both mum and I thought was a little excessive so took the lamb out as soon as it looked done (and we were right!) This one leg of lamb more than comfortably serves four and we even had some leftovers to make a sandwich the next day (have I ever mentioned how tasty roast sandwiches are? they are the best!)

potato salad

The amount of potato I eat is actually quite frightening and I'm surprised that I haven't quite turned into a potato yet. Well if I go missing one day, you'll more than likely find me in a potato sack cause I've turned into one! I love my crisps, hot chips dusted with chicken salt, baked spuds piled high with melting sour cream, mashed potato, roasted potato, potato gratin, have yet to try duck fat roasted potatoes (but the sound of it is already quite tasty) and last but not least, potato salad.

I came across this potato salad recipe just before Christmas and ended up making it for two separate Christmas parties. In both instances, the salad was completely gobbled up and I had several people asking me for the recipe. Well the recipe comes from Hamlyn's '200 super salads' by Alice Storey and here's how I made it...

Peel and rinse 1kg brushed new potatoes and cut into walnut sized pieces. Cook in lightly salted boiling water until tender (you should be able to slide a fork into the potato without any effort if the potato has cooked through). Rinse under cold water and let to cool.

Meanwhile, slice 250g smoked streaky bacon into thin strips. Heat 1 tsp oil in a frying pan and cook the bacon until gold, drain on kitchen paper and allow to cool. Finally dice 10 spring onions, reserving some for garnish.

Put the potatoes, finally sliced spring onions and bacon in a large salad bowl. Gently stir in 175mL mayonnaise ( I recommend S&W Delikatessen Mayo because it tastes absolutely scrumptious). Season to taste with cracked salt and pepper. Garnish with the reserved spring onions and serve.

open turkey & mushroom omelette

Amongst my many cooking endeavours (and I'd like to think I've had a fair few), I've also been encouraging the boy to cook. He was reluctant at first and continues to be reluctant but overtime I've managed to weasle out of him a very decent chocolate cake and on a recent weekend, an open turkey & mushroom omelette which was both aesthetically pleasing as it was to eat. I think he still prefers that I cook but a break from the kitchen and getting fed is always something to look forward to!

The boy hard at work concentrating on his chopping. For this omelette, we went through the fridge to see what there was and managed to find ourselves a handful of shitake mushrooms, a brown onion, a bunch of shallot, and some sliced turkey. From my soon to be vegie plot, we grabbed handful of coriander and 6 red chillis. One of the best things about omelettes is that you can improvise and make do with all sorts of ingredients you might have at home - it's actually one of those good recipes to cook when you are in need of clearing out the fridge!

In a small bowl, lightly mix together 4 eggs.

Grate about 150g cheddar cheese.

Start by sweating the chopped onion in a little bit of olive oil. Remove from the pan.

Start by cooking the egg on a low heat (pour all the egg into the pan in one go). Place all chopped ingredients on top of the egg and cook for about 2-3 minutes.

When the egg is about completely set, sprinkle over the top the grated cheddar cheese and heat through till the cheese melts. Most omelettes usually get folded in half before the eggs have completely set; I prefer to have my open omelettes and see what goes in it!

Serve your omelette with buttered toast! 

Eat with a knife and fork, otherwise if you are like J, you can cut up the omelette into slices and eat it like a pizza.

Kudos to the boy for the huge effort and let me just say, this omelette more than adequately feeds two (particularly if you are going to eat it with toast). Admittedly the sliced turkey had a very mild flavour but  a good dose of cracked salt and pepper will easily do the trick!

penne with pork & fennel sausages

A few weeks back, my mum drew attention to the fact that my dad loves to hoard dried pasta. He buys a pack when he sees it on special yet he never actually cooks pasta. The packs of pasta build up, mum thinks it's because dad knows I like cooking pasta so he buys it for me and well, the overarching result is that mum has needed to give me very occasional reminders about the pasta we have at home and the need for it to be used up. It's a good thing that dried pasta has a long-ish use by date (unlike fresh pasta which I've bought and wasted in the past after forgetting it was in the fridge) and well, it's been a good while since I've made myself a batch of pasta, and well, it's always handy to have bags of pasta at home when you get the sudden urge to cook up a batch!

This recipe has been adapted from 'Great Tastes Pasta' by Bay Books. Start by making the sauce and you'll need a good half hour for the sauce to cook reduce.  

Split 6 Italian Pork & Fennel sausages open, remove and crumble the filling and discard the skins. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook 1 small finely chopped onion for 3-4 minutes until fragrant and transparent. 

Add 2-3 cloves of crushed garlic, 1/2 tsp chilli flakes, 300g thinly slice mushrooms and crumbled sausage meat.

Cook over high heat, stirring gently to mash the sausage meat for 4-5 minutes or until the meat is evenly browned. Continue to cook, stirring once or twice for about 10 minutes. 

Stir in 1 tbsp dried thyme and 800g tinned chopped tomatoes, then bring the sauce to the boil. Cover and cook over medium-low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure the sauce doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

Meanwhile, cook 1 bag penne pasta in a large saucepan of boiling salted water until just tender. Drain well and return to the pan to keep warm.

Add the pasta to the sauce and stir to combine. Serve with grated parmesan cheese.

I'm not usually a big advocate of parmesan cheese but I think the parmesan really makes this dish. My brother had the pasta without the parmesan and found it a little bland and said I needed to add more salt. I usually like a lot of flavour in my pasta and really, I don't think it's the salt, it's definitely the parmesan which gives this pasta its flavour. Anyway, if you get round to making this recipe, let me know how you go!

penne with chorizo & peas

It's been awhile since I've done any proper cooking; I've either been baking or eating out. And well, my dad has been going insane in the kitchen; he's quite addicted to the pressure cooker and has been boiling and cooking things in it every hour and hogging up most of the kitchen so I'm left with the oven only to do some baking. I tried to share the stove space with him once and nearly ended up in an argument. Thought it best to leave him to it; dad is just as passionate a foodie as I am.

Anyway, did manage to grab hold of the kitchen last Sunday and cooked up a batch of pasta for lunch (with leftovers taken to work the next day). Not to boast but I cook pasta consistently well and if anything, I do a good job of improvising each time.

Recipe has been adapted from The Good Food Magazine '101 Pasta & Noodle Dishes' cookbook. I had every intention to get all the ingredients but at the last minute, decided that I didn't want to trek all over the suburb and made do with everything that was available at Franklins and the grocery shop nearby. Almost half the ingredients have been altered from the original recipe.

Start by cooking 1 bag of penne pasta in a pan of salted boiling water as per the instructions on the pack. Three minutes before the pasta is ready, tip in 100g of frozen peas and cook with the pasta. Whilst the pasta is cooking, split open 6 chorizo sausages and squeeze out the meat.

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a pan and stir fry the meat for 3-4 minutes until golden.

Add a pinch of chilli flakes, grated zest of 1 lemon to the meat and cook for 1 minute.

Stir in 1 tbsp of english mustard and 200g low fat cooking cream and simmer for 2 minutes.

Drain the pasta and peas.

Chop up a handful of parsley.

Stir in the pasta and peas into the chorizo mixture. Toss through the chopped parsley.

Serve!

You can add salt and pepper to taste but I found the chorizo already gave the pasta a lot of flavour. If you like parmesan like me, do add a generous serve of it!

This pasta was great taken to work the next day. It reheated well in the microwave and despite the lack of sauce, the pasta wasn't dry at all and remained just as tasty as after I'd cooked it. The light cream is something you can hardly taste and unlike previous cream based pastas I've cooked, the light cream didn't leave an oily mess after being reheated.

So far, every pasta recipe from this book has turned out spot on so if you're looking for a pasta recipe book, do give this one a go!

chicken with soy & balsamic dressing

When I don't eat out at Jap restaurants, I do enjoy cooking Jap at home. One of my favourite Japanese food authors is Harumi Kurihara. She's actually just realeased a new cookbook which I'm eager to get my hands on but the other two which she's published, they both sit prominently on my bookshelf. I haven't tried that many recipes from them but they are probably one of the most well-thumbed books that I own. The photography is stunning and each recipe is so tempting to try. Here was a recipe that was meant to serve 4 but ended up serving 2 greedy food enthusiasts.

Marinate 500g bite size pieces of chicken thigh in 2tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1 clove sliced garlic and ground black pepper for 30 minutes.

Roughly chop the cabbage into large pieces. In a wok, heat 1tbsp vegetable oil, 1 tbsp butter and saute the cabbage. Lightly season with salt and pepper.

Heat a little vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the chicken, turning half way so to brown both sides.

Place the cabbage on a serving dish and then arrange the chicken on top. Garnish with basil leaves (to be honest, the basil leaves can be optional - they don't add a whole lot to the dish aside from the presentation).

Serve with rice.

Like I said, this recipe was meant to serve 4 but J&I found it quite easily to gobble our way through it all. I can't remember us even being that hungry! Some advice from me is to make sure that the cabbage is cut evenly so that you don't have big chunks. I found that some of the pieces in my dish were just a tad too crunchy and big. Anyway, stay posted for more recipes from Harumi!

jamie oliver's chorizo & tomato omelette

I'm back home and also back with internet! Still not in the best health (I blame going to Macau; the two times I've been, both times I've returned home sick) but well, it's good to be back! Catching up on my favourite blogs, I'm absolutely gutted that I missed Adriano's Macaron B'day. The boy seems to think I'm being silly ('What would you do with 48 macarons?' to which my response was 'Eat them!') On another note, Max Brenner have launched a cookbook and 'I love macarons'; a book which I've had my eye on for the last couple of months is now available for sale on Fishpond! Work is busy, not quite crazy yet and well, this blog of mine has been a little neglected in the usual pattern of things.

This was a recipe I tried out prior to going on holidays. It's from Jamie's 'Jamie Dinners'; one of my favourite cookbooks at the moment. Lots of easy, no-fuss recipes and this particular recipe for a chorizo and tomato omelette, Jamie claims you can knock up in 4 minutes and 58 seconds (it falls under the chapter of '5 minute wonders'). I didn't actually time myself but I wouldn't imagine this recipe taking any more than 5 minutes. It's deadset easy!

Ingredients: Chorizo (sliced thickly), ripe tomato (deseeded and sliced), parsley, eggs, fresh red chilli, sea salt and pepper, spring onion.

Cook the chorizo in the frying pan with a little extra virgin oil.

To the chorizo, add the tomato and parsley. In a small bowl, whisk the egg, chilli and season with salt and pepper. Pour into the pan with the chorizo mix. Using a fork, mix the eggs around in the pan a little and then throw in the spring onion.

Fry the eggs till set.

My omelette ended up looking like a pizza! Anyway, I had my omelette with some buttered toast.

Loved how colourful the omelette turned out and with me improvising with the ingredient proportions, this recipe ended up serving 3. The recipe in Jamie's book serves 1 (and to be honest I didn't think I'd add much more ingredients to his list) so I think the recipes might be a tad larger than your average 'serving size'.

There should be a few more posts of recipes from this book. I'm having a bit of a crush on Jamie at the moment!

soba noodles & gyoza

I've been a bit of a hopeless blogger and there aren't even any excuses this time. Mum's back home, work's not that busy, I've just been pure lazy and let the blog posts dwindle. I'm not even all that sure where my time goes and for awhile, I stopped making my daily visits to my favourite blog sites. I guess you'd call that a blogging holiday. Did catch up on some reading though (for those after a feel good fiction read about bread, try Judi Hendrick's 'Bread Alone' and 'The Baker's Apprentice' - I got through those rather quickly), watched Julie/Julia (loved it!) and well, of course, continued eating and chomping away at food in front of me.

Here was one of my makeshift dinners whilst mum was away. Start with a pack of soba noodles (cook as per the instructions on the pack), top with soba sauce, seaweed and toasted sesame seeds.

For a more filling meal, have the noodles with gyoza. I love my gyoza with vinegar dipping sauce.

And to make it a little more fancy, serve with a soft boiled egg! Kudos to Char's blog - you gave me the inspiration.

All up it took me about 20 minutes to get a meal on the table which I thought was pretty good. It probably took me less time to eat it but it was a nice and simple meal which didn't cause too much of a mess. (As much as I was looking forward to trying some more recipes whilst mum was away, it turned out that there just wasn't any time. There was always things to do and the other half of the time, I just wanted to sleep).

Well, no excuses now. I'm back to blogging and hopefully some more adventurous recipes to follow.