It looks like I might finally be over my cold, sure there is a bit of a cough left but I can taste my food again! To celebrate I picked up a recipe from Dinner Tonight from back in March. Their baked chicken sausage with roast potato. I forgot to pick up a red cabbage that was the suggested accompaniment but I had a sweet potato and added that in for some colour. It helped that chicken sausages were half off at the supermarket tonight!

Baked Chicken Sausage and Roast Potato

Baked Chicken Sausage and Roast Potato
500g Chicken sausages
250g Baby (chat) potato, cut in half
250g Sweet potato, cut to the same size as the potato
Rosemary
Salt & pepper
Olive oil

Pre-heat your oven to 200ºC, place everything in a roasting pan, toss to coat.
Bake for 30 minutes.

Tags:Potato, Sausage, Chicken, Vegetables, Quick

Taking another queue from Donna Hay this week I picked out her Chorizo and Lentil umm, stew? It seemed a pretty simple recipe and it was but at the same time I don't think there was a lot of accuracy in the Donna Hay test kitchen the day they wrote that one. The lentils had to simmer for almost an hour instead of 25 minutes. I haven't cooked with lentils very often but I've heard that salt can retard the cooking process, stopping them from softening. I used salt reduced chicken stock and didn't add any salt opposed to what the recipe said but they still stayed firmer than I had hoped and given the extra cooking time the colour from the celery had drained out and wasn't any where near as vivid as in the picture in the magazine. It also seemed to make four good sized serves instead of the 2 it was meant to make. It's a simple recipe, give it a go sometime.

Chorizo and Green Lentils

Chorizo and Lentils
1 Onion, diced
2 Chorizo, diced
4 Sticks of celery, diced
6 Sprigs of thyme
2 Cups of green lentils
1L of chicken stock
Salt and Pepper
2T of red wine vinegar (I subbed balsamic)


Fry the onion and chorizo together until the sausage is crispy on medium heat, around 8 minutes.
Add the celery, thyme, fry for another 5 minutes.
Add the lentils and stock and simmer for 25 minutes until the lentils are soft (mine took almost an hour).
Stir through the vinegar and serve. I had some toast with mine to soak up the juices.

Saying all that though, it was really quite tasty, even given my blocked nose from my cold. Perhaps the surprisingly good cheap bottle of wine helped? I picked up a bottle of Cono Sur Organic Cabernet Sauvignon direct from the Colchagua Valley in Chile. It was the smoothest Cab Sav I've had in years. Aged in French Oak it has fantastic cherry, strawberry raspberry and vanilla flavours and for $12 a bottle, how can you complain? I'm going to pick up another dozen bottles when I can.

Cono Sur Organic Cab Sav

Tags:Lentils, Sausage, Vegetables, Wine, Red Wine

Someone at my day job was kind enough to give me a cold just in time for the weekend so I've been struggling through the day with my head spinning and my nose running. A thousand cold tablets later my nose is a little less sniffly but my head is spinning just as much. The problem with this though is writing a food blog you don't tend to be very hungry and even if you were your nose is blocked so you can't taste anything. I knew I needed to eat something with some flavour. A quick stroll around David Jones Food Hall and I found some fresh veal tortellini, veal meatballs and a jar of Bitton Spicy Pasta Sauce.

I really am sorry to say but I couldn't taste much of it at all. The meatballs were strong, the pasta wasn't and the sauce had a nice chili kick that I think has made my nose start running again. I'll have to try those meatballs again when I can smell them.

Veal Tortellini and Meatballs

Tags:Pasta, Veal, Beef, Tortellini, David Jones

Wonton Noodle Soup has to be one of those meals that really picks up my spirits, hearty and warming to the core. Just a pity it's so hard to find a good one. Last night I tried to make it with the Light Chinese Stock suggested in Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking but for what ever reason the stock ended up quite disappointing. I've never made a good stock so I can't pin the problem on Kylie. I guess I'm just going to have to keep trying. At least the wontons had a descent amount of prawn in them that you could really taste; most commercial wontons put in more of the cheaper minced pork than anything else.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make a good wonton soup??

Wonton Noodle Soup - The Enternal Struggle

Tags:Wonton, Stock, Chicken, Seafood, Pork

Trawling through the supermarket over the weekend for something to have for dinner I buckled at the knees with the picture of the chicken leek and mushroom pies on the cover of this month's Donna Hay. They looked delicious so I picked up a copy and went right a head and made... The Sticky Hoisin Pork with Steamed Beans, Peas and Rice recipe instead.

This thing was a little messy to make due mostly due to my clumsiness, but I am glad I used a non-stick frying pan. I haven't washed it yet but Im not looking forward to it. Other than that, it was quick, easy and bloody delicious. The pork in the picture in Donna Hay looked a little dry and overdone so I dropped the cooking time back a few minutes and it was extremely tender and the lightest of pink.

Sticky Hoisin Pork with Steamed Beans, Peas and Rice

Sticky Hoisin Pork with Steamed Beans, Peas and Rice
1T of Hoisin sauce
1T of Honey
1T of Soy sauce
450g Pork Loin
250g of Sugar snap peas
250g of Green beans
Rice to serve
Sesame seeds to garnish

Pre-heat your oven to 180℃
Mix the hoisin, soy and honey in a ziplock bag and place the pork loin inside and leave for 15 minutes.
Remove the pork and in a non-stick pan, fry the pork each side for 1-2 minutes. Pour the remaining marinade over the pork and turn to coat. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 15 minutes (the recipe said 15, I cooked mine for 12).
Once the pork is ready, remove and place on a chopping board and rest for 15 minutes.
Steam the beans and peas together.
Slice the pork diagonaly into disks and serve over on a bed of rice with the greens to the side. Drizzle the pan juices over the pork and sprinkle with the sesame seeds.

Tags:Hoisin, Pork, Rice, Peas, Beans, Donna Hay

For my birthday my brother and his fiancé got me Kylie Kwong's "Simple Chinese Cooking". It's big, blue and designed for the coffee table with full page pictures of each recipe. It's not what I'd call a serious cookbook; it's really more about the pictures which is fine but I don't need to have a recipe for prawns with chili ginger and soy dressing, and chicken with chili ginger and soy dressing, pork with chili ginger and soy dressing... I also don't need to stir-fry or deep-fry everything!
Having said that, I made the whole garfish recipe last night and the dressing was delicious but could have used a little less oil (modified recipe below). It was tasty sure, but next time I'm going to try the dressing with less oil and another fish like sea bream or mahi-mahi that are suggested alternatives in the book. The garfish was a pain the arse to eat with lots of sharp little pin-bones.

Whole garfish with ginger, chili and soy dressing

Deep Fried Whole Garfish with Chili, Ginger and Soy Dressing
4 Whole garfish, cleaned and gutted
Flour for dusting
Peanut oil for deep frying
1 Long red chili, sliced thinly
2 Spring onions, sliced thinly
¼C Coriander leaves
1 knob of ginger, grated finely
2T Dark soy
2T Light soy

Heat the peanut oil in a wok until the surface is shimmering
Dust the garfish in the flour and shake off the excess
Place the chili, spring onion, coriander and ginger in a heat proof bowl and pour over a spoonful of the hot oil and stir. Add the soy sauces and stir to combine.

Slip the garfish into the hot oil, two at a time and cook until the flesh is firm and white, about 3 minutes. Place the first two garfish on a plate with paper towel and cook the remaining two. Don't be tempted to cook all four at the same time because the oil will cool down too much and the flour coating won't go crispy.

Serve with the garfish draped over a mound of rice and the dressing spooned over.

Tags:Fish, Seafood, Asian, Recipe, Kylie Kwong

This past weekend I flew over to Perth and stayed at the Intercontinental at Burswood. I went for a standard river view room from Wotif, running around $250 a night which might seem a little steep but compared to my recent visit Sofitel Brisbane I can’t complain. It was a big room, well laid out with an enormous bathroom, with a bath that had a view of the TV. The only thing that could have made that bath any better was a few water jets and a larger TV to look at.

I had a room-service dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and all of us were blown away with the quality and value. We had two soups, two fillet steaks with prawns and a sirloin with roast veg, all for around $135 and that really is great value.

My sister-in-law had a tom yum soup ($15) that was perfectly balanced hot-sour, not too much oil and with giant prawns resting as a surprise on the bottom of the bowl while I had the wonton noodle soup ($13) that was amazing; the broth was clear, golden and delicately flavoured and the wontons were the best I’ve ever had. The wonton skins were perfectly white, delicately thin and a perfect mouthful of prawn and I think scallop meat. When I saw it presented I was a little disappointed that there weren’t any egg noodles in the bottom and no seafood free-floating on top but once I tasted it all of that was forgiven. I can tell that I’ll be trying all winter to re-create this soup.

Wonton Noodle Soup, Intercontinental Burswood

As for the main courses my sister-in-law and I both chose the fillet steak with prawns and wedges and my brother had the sirloin with roasted vegetables (all around $35). All of us, as with the soups were extremely impressed. The steaks were generous, all over 500g and the sirloin I’d suggest was pushing 750g and even with the ride up from the kitchen to our room they were perfectly cooked just how we’d ordered them and all butter soft.

Sirloin and Roast Vegetables, Intercontinental Burswood

The only thing I missed from the meal, not that we’d ordered it, was a bottle of water on the table; for an order this size it would have been a nice touch but I won’t fault them for not providing one. The one litre bottle of Evian in the mini-bar was $8.

The next morning I ordered the “Burswood Breakfast” from room service as the buffet breakfast wasn’t included in my rate. It was $35 and again I couldn’t find fault with it. My family had breakfast at the buffet and the report was they would have been more than happy with just what I’d received. A choice of eggs with a mountain of bacon, sausages and tomato, fruit platter, toast, several spreads a croissant and a Danish with juice and tea or coffee. Each morning I had it I could only get through half. If you’re a light eater, you could possibly split this with someone else if you ordered an extra pastry and juice. Some how, the poached eggs on my first morning were delivered perfectly cooked with soft runny yolks and the scrambled eggs on the second day were tender, rich and creamy while the bacon was a good mix of soft and crispy.

Burswood Breakfast, Intercontinental, Burswood

Next tim I head to Perth I’m going to have to stay again, hopefully with a little more forward planning I’ll be able to book a club room and check out their lounge.

Tags:Intercontinental, Burswood, Travel, Hotel, Room Service, Beef, Steak, Soup, Breakfast

At the top of the list of any visit to Perth, with out fail, is to head out to Fremantle for the day to wander through the [unfortunately small] markets and have lunch or dinner at one of the many top class restaurants. This trip, the family and I went to the Little Creatures brewery for a late lunch.

The brewery is housed inside one of the two boat sheds that make up their premises, the other houses the bar and restaurant with a giant glass wall separating the two so you can watch the brewers occasionally scuttle around checking valves and whatnot. It’s not a fascinating show if you ever even get to see someone, large modern brewery, even the smaller ones like Little Creatures are generally set-and-forget with only some monitoring of the brewing and fermenting. I was hoping for an ommpaloompa, but I guess they’re probably locked in cages to protect the public.

Little Creatures, Fremantle

It was a beautiful sunny day so we went through a couple of false starts to try and secure an outside table, having much more success than most. The back area is large and set to have the feel of your mate’s back yard, complete with bocce pit taking up some valuable real estate. Full credit has to go to management for not trying to squeeze in an extra 100 people and ruining a great atmosphere.

Inside are two levels of seating that seem to be able to fit hundreds of people with the ground level split with a large bar at the front and the open planned kitchen at the back, including the wood fired pizza oven that probably didn’t help to cool the inside of the warmer than outside shed. It was cooler outside in the sun.

We didn’t want a huge meal, just something to tide us over until dinner so we just ordered a plate of prawn skewers (a little over cooked) and a spicy sausage pizza that left a satisfying lip tingle for 15 minutes after you’d eaten it. For a wood fired pizza, I was a little disappointed but I still went back for another slice. I am glad they showed restraint in the toppings department and didn’t overload any of the pizzas on the menu.

Prawn Skewers @ Little Creatures, Fremantle

Spicy Sausage Pizza @ Little Creatures, Fremantle

We only had the pale ale to drink here and it was as nice as ever, and one of the better pale ales around. I saw the cider on the menu when we first sat down inside but completely forgot about it by the time we’d moved seats twice to try and get outside.

It was really nice sitting outside watching the well-behaved toddlers run around, a group of friends play a round of bocce and others clamber over the small stage that’s occasionally used for live bands so I’m glad we did shuffle around to get out there. The wait-staff were friendly and mostly professional. The best evidence of this was how the waiter and subsequently management dealt with a woman we’d pointed out to them who probably chose the wrong seat and should have waited to get an outside seat too…

Dignity. She Needs It

Tags:Restaurant, Beer, Prawns, Pizza, Perth