Japanese Fried Food

I love Masterchef. Not only is there lots of food porn, they also give you very tasty recipes that actually work (unlike the sucky MKR website). A few weeks ago this guy gave a very nice tutorial on how to make my favourite Japanese entree; Agedashi Tofu! And even though I hate frying (the spitting oil hurts!) I just had to give it a go.

So since I got the oil out, I figured I'd also try to make tempura and tori-karaage. Tempura was pretty easy, but the tori-karaage was a mess. Must try to get a proper recipe instead of winging it. The agedashi however was DIVINE. The sauce was spot on!

Fresh Pasta Experiment

So I finally used my birthday voucher and bought a pasta machine from Kitchenware Direct. I decided to have a go at tortellini. I made a filling from leftover roast chicken, spinach, herbs and 3 cheeses in the food processor which was easy peasy. However the pasta dough was a bit more challenging! For one, I think I'm too unco to crank the handle, feed the pasta and pull the pasta at the same time. I also had a bit of difficulty clamping the machines to my kitchen counter so I had to improvise with a few heavy cook books. Anyway this was the result. Not sure it's worth all the trouble but it was quite fun.

Cornish Pasties for M

My dear friend D who I have known for many many years too me out for a belated birthday treat and spoilt me with many gifts including yummy nougat and truffle oil! But my favourite gift was a Gordon Ramsay cook book "Great British Pub Food". In it I found a recipe for authentic cornish pasties! I remembered that W's dad M is really keen on them so I decided to give it go.

I made a shortcrust pastry and a potato, swede and beef filling. I had one fresh out of the oven and the pastry was SO GOOD! Much better than the puff pastry in an Aussie pasty. Anyway, according to plan I nervously fed one to my Cornish Pasty Expert the next day for lunch on his run. Apparently it's authentic, but I need to use More Pepper! I'm happy with that :)

Pyrolytic Oven

Ok, due to popular demand I have cleaned my oven and taken before and after photos. Not bad for 4 hours and a flick of the switch I must say. As you can see the rails and trays can't be left in coz the clever bugger heats up to 500 degress Celsius to turn the grime to ash. So the idea is you just sweep the ash out and tada... clean oven without use of chemicals.

At the moment the racks are soaking in my bathrub with a Finish Powerball which the internet claims is the easiest way to clean them. The alternative method is to seal them in a garbage bag with ammonia over night but that just sounds bloody dangerous. Knowing me, I'd end up with chemical burns trying to get them out, so bathtub it is.

Roast Chicken with 40 cloves of Garlic!

My co-worker K recommended this recipe to me. The amount of garlic kind of scared me and but I was assured that it would not be overpowering. In the end I compromised and only used 20 cloves of garlic, but I did serve it up with garlic bread because I was out of oven chips.

Yet Another Roast Beef Dinner

I'd like to say I was inspired by watching the latest Masterclass on Masterchef, but in reality I was motivated by an unbelievable craving for yorkshire puddings. I didn't find it hard to talk W into a Yet Another Roast Beef Dinner.

I was delighted to see my butcher had one standing rib roast left. It was pre-tied so I didn't get to play with twine. Darn. I also decided to use Gravox too, to save bawling my eyes out over onions.

I tried to follow Gary Mehigan's tips and they definitely paid off. Double egg and lard makes for a "nommier" Yorkshire Pudding!

Asian food Phase

I went on a bit of an Asian Food phase recently. Unfortunately it was a Lazy Phase so I'm afraid these posts are a bit overdue and I don't have many photos to show.

I dished out some Malaysian Satay for a BBQ and made BBQ Wonton Noodle soup for my folks. For W, I made a dry noodle Wonton Noodle coz he's not a huge fan of soup. I also made a good quick Curry Laksa meal using the Delimas packets and pre-made Yong Tau Fu from my local Chinese Grocer.

Eggplant Parmagiana

This is my version of Rosa Matto's Eggplant Pargiana recipe I saw on Italian Food Safari. I couldn't be bothered with bocconcini or fresh basil leaves so I left them out. Anyone who knows me well knows how boring I find vegetables but this dish is absolutely delicious!