shiokadelicious!

Sometimes I'm not sure why I feel the need to add more words to the innahnet.. there's so many people who do it so well.

Today's find is shiokadelicious! This great site seems to hail from Singapore as is full of great foodie rants and recipes. I am tempted to run home from work now and make Snake Beans with Egg, followed by Kek Batik - a great looking Bruneian cake that seems to be a cross between a rumball and a brownie. As the author said - how can you not want a cake made from condensed milk, Milo and Marie biscuits!

(Shiok! [shee-oak] (adj) colloquial Straits Chinese/Malay; fantastic; marvelous; an exclamation of enjoyment)

Roses and rhubarb

From Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons comes this great dish. An updated version of rice-pudding with rhubarb that transforms it from English boarding school into Mediterranean delight. I made it to take to Eve's the other night and it was all polished off in a second. It is really easy and very delicious - the rice is creamy and custardy and the rose flavoured syrup works surprisingly well with the rhubarb flavour to lift it out of the everyday.

I bought gum mastic from the turkish grocer on Smith St - a few spoons of yellowish clear lumps cost me $3.50 but I do think the taste it adds is worthwhile if you can find it. It's one of those subtle tastes that you barely notice but it is distinctive - just reminds me of Greek desserts or Turkish delight. I think it's a resin from some kind of orchid. If you can't get it just leave it out.

Rizogalo with Rose scented Roasted Rhubarb
(Rizogalo is a Greek rice pudding)

• lots of rhubarb cut into 10 cm lengths (I used about 900g)
• 150 ml water
• 200 g sugar
• 1 tbsp rose water70g short grain rice
• 850ml full cream milk (I used soy milk and added a dollop of cream)
• 55g caster sugar
• 1/4 tsp mastic (ground in mortar and pestle)
• 1 egg yolk
• 60 ml double cream

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C. (350 F)
2. Put the rhubarb pieces in a baking dish. Cover with sugar (200g) and water (150ml). Seal with foil and bake for 30 - 40 minutes.
3. Cover the rice with water and bring to the boil. Boil for 5 minutes and then drain.
4. Heat the milk with the rice, sugar and mastic.
5. Bring to a boil and then simmer gently until the milk is absorbed. It takes 15 - 30 minutes. Stir occassionally.
6. Take the rice off the heat.
7. Mix the cream with the egg yolk and then add to the rice. Turn out into a bowl to let it cool.
8. When the rhubarb is roasted - soft but still in distinct pieces - drain it, keeping the juices.
9. Boil the juice down into a syrup. Add rose water to taste and then pour the syrup over the rhubarb.
10. Serve the rice and rhubarb in two big bowls garnished with rose petals.

Did you notice I learnt to post photos? Now I just need someone to buy me a digital camera so I can record my efforts.

It seems early but the apricots are here! I've generally thought apricots aren't worth eating unless you have a tree but at a Sydney Rd fruit shop I found some with the most amazing flavour. I've been guzzling them all day, making infused vodka with them, and rushing back to buy more when I'm in the area. Now it feels like summer!

Give me your groats

Firstly, props to Bindy- she just finished her exams and came through on her promise to make me a chocolate souffle. It was great - it rose high, was chocolatey and melty. She used this recipe from Recipe Zaar. We thought maybe it wasn't chocolatey enough - but really it was great and enough to give us a big chocolate buzz. Not too hard either - despite all the scary vibes that surround souffle I've never seen one fail.

Lately I’m getting back to my roots – wanting to eat and learn about Polish (and Russian) food. Inspired by another great library book - A Year of Russian Feasts - I've been dreaming of a big feast for my birthday. I'm thinking a massive table spread with zakuski - Polish antipasto. Beetroot salad, pickles, Blini... And lots of vodka. On Sunday I made some infused vodkas to go with the feast - lime, cherry, ginger, honey and cinnamon and chilli flavours.

Feeling all Polish, I decided to made some Kasha for dinner. My Mum hates Kasha(buckwheat) but I think I want to eat more. It's a traditional Polish dish where the grains are cooked like rice and served in many different ways. This recipe is very straightforward and would be great with a big eggplant stew, or served as part of a bigger Eastern European style meal. It'll taste even better if you use wild mushrooms, or a stock based on dried mushrooms - but it's great as is.

Kasha with Musrooms and Leek

• 1 cup whole buckwheat groats (from a health food store)
• 1 - 2 leeks, finely sliced
• 2 - 3 big handfulls of mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cups water or stock
• 4 - 6 tbsps butter or oil
• half a cup chopped walnuts, lightly toasted
• 1 tsp salt
• sour cream

1. Melt the butter in a big pot with a good lid.
2. Fry the buckwheat gently for 2 minutes.
3. Add the mushrooms and leek and fry until soft - maybe 5 minutes.
4. Add the water and salt and bring to the boil.
5. Add the lid and turn the heat down.
6. Cook for 10 -15 minutes until the groats are cooked through - they shouldn't be chewy or mushy.
7. Leave to sit (with lid) for 5 minutes.
8. Serve with the walnuts on top and pass the sour cream.

Mmmm.. yum. Nutty goodness.

a proper tea party

why do anarchists drink herbal tea?
because proper tea is theft.

( say it outloud)

Well Sunday's afternoon tea was awesome - most of my favourite people gathered together and completely off their faces on sugar!

The passionfruit sponge was my best yet I think. And Sarah made some great lamington’s – I’ll post that recipe here soon. As well as the food we made (see the other post) we had:

• Lemon meringue pie by Jessie


• The most delicious rum balls ever by Gab


• Mini-apple pies by Texta


• Mushroom and Jarlsberg quiche by Ruth


• Asparagus and peas by Eve


• Curried egg sandwiches by Em5000

Yeah it was a damn huge feast. I could barely even fit a scone in. And there was only one dish brought that didn’t fit out theme – a mediterranean plate of toasted pita, eggplant, peppers and rocket – quite delicious really but not very “proper”.

Lucky there was only one aberration – my control freak side had been worrying a lot about how to get everything to fit. What do other people do about this? Cook it all yourself I guess. We had allocated dishes to most people but you can never tell who’s going to rock along.

It was all great though, and the effect of too much tea and too much sugar was wonderful to behold. Costumes were great too – lots of cutesy aprons and old-school dresses. Wish I had a digital camera so I could show you - but damn I love my friends. And my girl. At 3pm, as we madly buttered bread for cucumber sandwiches, dipped lamingtons and made little pea tartlets we looked at each other and thought "who else would be crazy enough to do this?"

broadly speaking

Well, it's spring and that means broad beans. The garden is full of these little lovelies and because I'm growing them I can pick them however I want.

Tiny ones are lovely just boiled for a second and dressed with butter and lemon.

The medium ones made great pasta the other day. I used the little ones that are gnocchi shaped and just threw the beans and some asparagus pieces in a couple of minutes before the pasta was done. Drain and stir through plenty of salt and pepper, oil and lots of fetta chunks. Oh yeah!

And for the big fat beans? Well broad bean dip is pretty hard to go past. Eve dropped some around the other day - lovely and garlicky. I'm pretty sure it's just beans, lemon juice, olive oil and masses of garlic.

The hardest thing is resisting picking the pods too early - they look so big but it's all padding and the beans are still tiny inside.

a tea party

Sarah and I have long talked about having a 'proper afternoon tea' and finally - this Sunday - it's going to happen. We're aiming for a cross between old English and Australian colonial style and trying our hardest to not be too pedantic. This is not easy for us - we had fears of people turning up with Rice Paper Rolls or something. But it's shaping up quite well. So far the menu is:

• Scones (with jam and cream)
• Passionfruit sponge
• Lamingtons
• Lemon Meringue Pie
• Homemade Ice Cream
• Cucumber Sandwiches
• Egg Salad Sandwiches
• Mini Quiches
• Asparagus
• Mini Pea Tartlets

We've had some trouble coming up with savoury ideas but I think it's looking pretty good. Maybe we need something more chocolatey? I've been practicing the Passionfruit Sponge - once for Sarah's birthday and once for my housemates. Here's the recipe:

Passionfruit Sponge
This seems to be a traditional Australian cake. As I'm not a traditional Australian I'm new to making it. In my family cakes were more likely to be serious dense things with poppyseeds or cherries but I'm trying to assimilate - I swear I am. And I'm learning that a sponge cake doesn't have to be a disappointing tasteless stale thing - it can be fluffy sweet and soft.

This recipe comes from The Age and is by Loretta Sartori. The article ("Whip it Good"!) has heaps of good tips for making sponges and a few other recipes so it's definitely worth checking out. Here's the recipe I used:

• 5 eggs (large)
• ¾ cup castor sugar
• ½ cup custard powder
• ½ cup cornflour
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Real cream for whipping - about 350ml
• Homemade apricot jam (I just used a fancy bought one)
• Icing sugar
• Butter
• Passionfruit pulp - from 3 passionfruits (or a tin if you really can't find any)

1. Preheat oven to 175C
2. Butter and flour your tins. Springform is best. Make sure the bottom is thoroughly buttered.
3. Separate the whites and yolks, set yolks aside.
4. Sift dry ingredients three times.
5. Whisk the whites until soft peaks form, gradually adding the sugar.
6. Add the yolks to the whisked whites, mixing until combined.
7. Remove from the mixer and fold through the sieved dry ingredients very gently.
8. Transfer to tins.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes for the small cakes or 35 minutes for the large.
10. When cold, slice into three layers.
11. Spread first layer with homemade apricot jam then whipped cream; position second layer on top and repeat. Add third layer.
12. Ice top layer with passionfruit icing: sift icing sugar and mix in passionfruit pulp. Then add melted butter to make it a runny consistency. Spread quickly over the surface and allow to run down the sides. Chill cake before serving.
    
    Yield: 2 x 20cm round tins or 1 x 28cm round tin

The hardest bits for me is folding the dry ingredients through - how do you get it all mixed in without flattening the eggs? I also had a bit of trouble removing the cakes from the tins - I think I need to butter them more. But once it's all sandwiched together it looks truly impressive. And it tastes great.

Taco's galore

One thing I love about the blog world is that there's always people more obsessive than me. It's reassuring and it's inspiring. Over at Becks & Posh (cockney for "nosh") there's a great photo spread of the The Halloween Mission Taco Crawl 2004 which reminds me of everything I love about being a touch crazy about food. People in great outfits running around eating lots of mexican - what's not to like?

Speaking of Mexican, I'm relieved to say that Melbourne finally has another place that actually makes real (soft) tacos and other proper Mexican food. Los Amates is at 34 Johnston St, Fitzroy - just opposite Casa Iberica, my favourite Latin foods store.

Shane, Sammy and I tried Los Amates a couple of weeks ago and were pretty impressed. There was a slight ordering mishap - when we discovered a bit of ham on our vegetarian platter - but the chef himself came to make it all okay. The food itself was great and reassuringly free of mounds of melted cheese. I'll need to go back again to really suss out the different options because the menu is pretty long and we were a bit too drunk to be discerning. I remember some great sopas - little flat tortillas with a topping of salsa verde. And good fresh red salsas too, although disappointingly mild.

The prices are Fitzroy-ish but you can't blame them when all the dodgy Mexican restaurants charge more. And the menu has a really cute note - "if you like it, tell all your friends because we really need to send some cash to our relatives in jail in Columbia." How can you resist that?