dinner @ jo's

Last Sunday, the lovely Jo invited a group of us over for dinner - the hostess was cooking a shoulder of lamb and for the rest of us, we were asked to bring along a main dish and a dessert. The theme for dessert was chocolate or cheese - chocolate ended up being everyone's ingredient of choice and we ended up with a tableful of chocolate desserts to munch on. Anyway, here's what everyone brought on the night:

A's Pumpkin Soup (it was a tad spicy and when I asked A, the secret ingredient in it was Curry Powder which I thought was a might good combination).

C's Chicken Pie (made by C's sister).

M's Butter Chicken & Rice.

Jo's Shoulder of Lamb (uber tasty!) and the Pear, Walnut & Rocket Salad from my last post.

Dessert time! As full as I was from dinner, I managed to taste test everyone's desserts. Here you'll see M's Chocolate Tarts, C's Melting Moments, A's Chocolate Scones, Jo's sister's Blueberry & Lemon Scones and my Flourless Chocolate Muffins. 

I was definitely in need of a cup of tea to help me digest!

Dinner and dessert was a great idea and we all left Jo's place contentedly full. I had my goodie bag of desserts to take home (which my mum thought was rather cute and started questioning me on what everything was and who made it). It was great to also watch Sunday's episode of Masterchef over dinner with the girls and talk about food. Definitely a great way to finish up on a weekend!

pear, walnut & rocket salad with classic salad dressing

So I finally made my first, actually two savoury recipes from 'In the Kitchen'. Thanks to Jo who invited a couple of the girls over for dinner on Sunday night, we were all requested to bring along a dish and a dessert. My dessert were the the flourless chocolate muffins I made in my last post. After careful deliberation (taking into account what the other girls were making, guessing what they were making, time constraints and ingredients I had at home), for my 'dish', I ended up going with the pear, walnut & rocket salad from 'In the Kitchen' with the classic salad dressing.

The dressing took just a matter of minutes to whip up - a simple combo of dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil as well as cracked salt + pepper to taste. Personally, I loved it and I had Jo's mum ask me for the recipe.

To make one bowl of salad (which ended up decently serving 7), combine rocket (in my case, I used Italian mix), parmesan, toasted walnuts and sliced pear. I was worried that the dressing would make the salad soggy and brought it over to Jo's place separately to add just before serving. Turns out you didn't really need to - with the extra ingredients I made the salad again to bring to lunch today and I added the dressing straight away. By lunchtime, the salad was still fine.

The finished salad.

As strange as it sounds, the toasted walnuts in this salad are addictive. I never thought I was a big fan of walnuts but I end up munching on them whilst they were toasting in the oven and even before they went into the salad. I daresay, strange things are happening and I'm getting old - things I never used to like I'm starting to like! Bitter gourd and walnuts are just the start!

flourless chocolate muffins

Last week, I went a little crazy and started marking with post-its all the recipes I wanted to cook from 'In The Kitchen'. Well the plan is to cook my way through the book but then there's ones which I want to cook first and these were the ones I was putting post-it notes against. By the time I was done, I ended up with a book with post-it notes coming out of all sides and I sort of thought to myself, I haven't really achieved a whole lot.

As crazy as it seems though, there is a method to the madness. I go through the book, pick out the recipes which really interest me and the next time I'm at the supermarket or fruit market, I'm on the alert for ingredients that are on special and then cook the respective recipe with that ingredient. It worked out this weekend when I found chocolate blocks on special and decided to cook the flourless chocolate muffins.

Melting the butter and chocolate.

Whipping the egg whites to firm peaks.

To the chocolate mixture, add egg yolks, almond meal plus caster sugar. Fold in the whipped egg white.

Into the muffin liners.

Bake for about 30-35 minutes and you get these nicely puffed up muffins with the cracked tops.

It actually came as a bit of surprise to me that these muffins rose so much. Every other flourless cake/baked product I've seen baked by others or baked commercially seems to collapse in on itself. I actually brought these over for dinner at a friend's and even my friend A was querying me whether it was actually flourless and whether I'd put any raising agents in it. The answer is no and if anything, it would be the fact that I folded in the egg whites slowly and didn't collapse any of the air bubbles so when baked, they looked just like normal muffins (but of course with the cracked tops).

So this brings it to Recipe #5 and so far, so good!

hong kong cafe @ carlingford village

Saturday night, I joined Mum & Dad for dinner at Hong Kong Cafe in Carlingford Village. It's been awhile since I've been here unlike my parents who routinely head over to Carlingford Village each weekend to pick up groceries and Chinese magazines and who visit Hong Kong Cafe much more than I do. If you ask them, they'll give you a good word or two about this place, they reckon it's probably one of the few Chinese places that have opened up and have actually maintained the quality of their food over time. We discussed it at dinner also but the latest topic of discussion amongst my parents is that most of our local Chinese joints are becoming quite bad - from bad hygiene, poor quality food to chefs that don't really know how to cook but yet call themselves cooks. It's one of those topics which we could discuss at length! Anyway, moving on...

For me, the one thing I love about Hong Kong Cafe is their HK Style Milk Teas. It's strong yet slightly sweet as it should be. I like my milk tea cold and this place serves it with the right amount of ice. Anyway, whilst waiting for food, I was browsing through my free copy of Good Food Magazine which I picked up at the Good Food Show.

Stir Fried Beef Noodles. Truly a classic done just right.

This was an XO sauce chicken noodle which had a decent amount of fresh chilli tossed through. My parents weren't a big fan of the chilli and started picking them out but I loved it!

Pork with Crispy Noodles. This is my dad's favourite and he orders it without fail whenever he feels like noodles. The crispy noodles are great (adds texture to the dish) but I'm not the biggest fan of the pork bits that come with it - they just taste like bleached pieces of meat (I swear, it tastes like this wherever you order it!)

Over time, I've grown to love this dish. It's fish with black bean, bitter gourd, bamboo sheets and mushrooms. Hate to say the obvious but I used to find the bitter gourd 'bitter' but over time, you get accustomed to the taste and you actually come to crave it.

The four dishes was a bit much for the three of us and we ended up taking away a box of noodles for home.

Anyway, for those interested, Hong Kong Cafe serve up breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. I'm always tempted to go for afternoon tea because they have Nissin 2 minute noodle specials (I know it's silly, I could cook a pack at home but you've got to admit, it does taste a bit better when it gets cooked by someone else!) 

Overall, it's worth visiting and you'll get a decent feed for under $15.

good food & wine show 2009

The Sydney Good Food & Wine Show is an event that Mum & I look forward to each year and without fail, we made our way over there today for the second day of the show (end's tomorrow so get there whilst it's still on!). 

It was quite noticeable that there were a few less exhibitors at this year's show. No Lindt, No Lilydale Chicken, gone were a lot of the bigger brands but more of the smaller brands and locally produced vendors. Not necessarily a bad thing and yay to Cookie Couture (with their range of pretty decorated cookies - unfortunately they only had some sample cookies on sale), they yummylicious Yael's - Cakes of Distinction (shame that they weren't selling cakes at the show but just offering samples), Bretzels from Melbourne (I had the Cinnamon and Vanilla) and so the list goes on.

It was great that the show took up another hall this year and everything was a bit more spread out; still crowded but with the extra space, we all got a bit more breathing space. It also meant that Mum, M & I managed to get ourselves a seat at the Lindeman's Early Harvest Restaurant. The queue to get the 'dining currency' i.e. $8 vouchers was a little annoying but my theory is that it's a decoy to slow people down from getting into the restaurant too quickly, meaning that by the time you get your vouchers and get your meal, you should be able to get yourself a table because others have left. Anyway, between the three of us, we decided on 2 mains and 2 desserts and without us knowing, we ended choosing one item from each of the 4 celebrity chefs. 

Gordon Ramsay's Glazed Salmon with Spinach & Radish Salad. I didn't get the matching wine with this one but swapped it with a bottle of Perrier Mineral Water.

Toby Puttock's Veal Osso Bucco. Would've been better if this was served a bit warmer.

Alistair McLeod's Chocolate Cream Brulee, Irish Whiskey soaked strawberries, almond biscotti. Not a traditional creme brulee with the sugar topping to crack and tasted more like a pannacotta.

Matt Moran's Strawberry Tart with Champagne Sabyon. This one got us into a conversation with randoms that were sitting next to us. They thought our one had more raspberries than theirs - we had to explain to them that our one 'looked like ' it had more raspberries because we'd quartered the tart and all the raspberries and sauce started running all over the plate.

The loot!

Speaking of random, mum bought a broom at the show (the handle which you see in the above pic). Again, we somehow started a conversation with a random and bought the broom with them (it was $30 for 2) and well, mum thinks it's the best thing in the world because it sweeps all types of floors from tiles to carpet!

Let me say, tops to Weight Watchers - I think they were probably the best stalls at the show. They were generously handing out ice cream sundaes (which tasted great!), their showbag was value for money and the staff were so friendly and helpful. As you can see, the Weight Watchers showbag was one of the many bags Mum & I picked up! Although my favourite would have to be the 'Ritter Sport' Bag (see top right in the above pic - basically a bag made out of Ritter Sport wrappers).

Coming home, I'm all aches and pains. You see, all the items you see above were hand carried by Mum and myself (we couldn't be bothered with bringing the trolley we had at home because it takes so much space). So all up, we probably spent a good 5 hours at the show walking, minus the half hour we were in the Celebrity Theatre watching the Masterchef's; Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris. Buggered!