Shanghai noodles with pork mince

ingredients:

for the sauce:

2 tbsp brown bean sauce
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
375 ml (1½ cups)chicken stock

for the rest of it:

80 ml (1/3 cup) vegetable oil
5 green onions, finely chopped, white and green parts separated
2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
300g minced pork
1 tsp white sugar, or to taste
1 tsp tapioca starch
500gm fresh Shanghai noodles
1 Lebanese cucumber

method:

1. First things first. Take off your coat, shake your umbrella out and get into a pair of slippers. Turn the heating on and rouse the family. “We’re having noodles for dinner!”you will say. “Oh, ok.” they will reply. Don’t worry about the lack of reaction. They’ll come around once they start to smell it

2. Now get to sauce making. Dump it all in whatever is deemed worthy and stir around. It can be tricky measuring out some of the ingredients, mainly because the lid of your jar will be this big and your tablespoon measure will be just that little bit wider. No matter. Guess-timate. Use your sense of smell to see what you think it should be like.

3. Hopefully by now you will have found a hungry hovering hippo to give you a hand. If not, you can do it yourself. It’s not so bad, truly. Chop up the spring onion and cucumber. Three bowls please. One for the white part of the spring onion, one for the green, and another for the cucumber. I’ve done my spring onion in rounds (straight across it) and my cucumber in little matchsticky pieces.

4. While they’re at it, get them to chop the garlic. That way their fingers will smell of garlic all night, and not yours.

5. We’re almost there! Truly! Tip the oil in a wok and wait til it gets hot. Toss the white part of the spring onion and the garlic in and fry until fragrant (but not brown). About half a minute will do nicely.

6. Toss the mince in and stir fry it until it becomes opaque and each bit of meat separates from the others.

7. Now toss your sauce mix in and simmer. After about five minutes, mix your starch with about 3 tablespoons of water and toss that in too. Bring it to the boil, then back to a simmer for another five minutes. Toss the green part of the spring onion in and stir just before serving.

8. In the meantime, cook your noodles in a separate pot of boiling water for about 3 minutes.

9. All done? Ladle a serve of noodles into a bowl, top with your nicely thickened meaty sauce, a good handful of cucumber and you’re good to go. Now, where was that remote…

Spicy cold chicken salad

1 double chicken breast (200g)
1/2 lebanese cucumber
2 sprigs spring onion or shallots (depending on preference)
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp light soy sauce
2 tsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp white pepper
salt (to taste)
dried chilli flakes (to taste)

1. To poach the chicken breast, bring water or stock to a low simmer in a pot. I used a vegetable stock with lemongrass & star anise in it. This isn’t strictly necessary, so feel free to just use water or vegetable stock by itself.

2. Pop the chicken breast in and top the liquid up so that the chicken breast is submerged by at least 2cm. Now heat the pot up until the liquid boils and then reduce back to a simmer. Simmer for five minutes then turn the heat right off, put a lid on and pop the pot to one side for 15 minutes. Pull the chicken out at the 15 minute mark and it should be moist and just done. Plunge the chicken in ice water to stop the cooking process and then shred finely.

3. Remove the cucumber’s seeds and then shred or grate the cucumber up to look like green worms. Chill to keep crisp. Chop the shallots or spring onions up into 5mm pieces.

4. Mix the remaining ingredients together and toss with the chicken, cucumber & shallots. Serve cold.

Blueberry Pancakes with Dark Salted Caramel Butterscotch Sauce

Ingredients

200g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp castor sugar
pinch of fine sea salt
160ml buttermilk
100ml cold water
4 large eggs, beaten
a punnet of blueberries or equivalent quality of frozen blueberries (defrosted)
Butter or oil for frying

Method

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar & salt into a large mixing bowl.
2. Mix the buttermilk, water & eggs in a separate container.
3. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
4. Allow pancake batter to rest for 10 mins.
5. Heat up a frying pan to medium-low heat and add just enough butter or oil to just coat the bottom of the pan.
6. Add a small ladle of batter to the pan and drop in a few blueberries on top of the batter.
7. Cook until bubbles start to appear on the surface of the batter, then flip over to cook onto the other side.

Sauce

Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup of boiling water
50g unsalted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
a few drops of vanilla
200ml cream
salt to taste

Method

1. Dissolve sugar in a medium sized saucepan over low heat until it turns dark being careful not to burn the sugar.
   • Ensure that the boiling water is readied by the time the sugar turns golden brown for the next step.
2. Once small wisps of smoke appear from the caramel, remove immediately from the heat and carefully pour in the boiling water.
3. Stir the mixture until its smooth.
4. Bring the saucepan back to the heat and add the butter and brown sugar.
5. Once again, stir mixture until smooth & all the brown sugar has dissolved.
6. Stir in the cream and drops of vanilla until incorporated.
7. Add salt to taste.
   • See note below.
8. Serve either whilst warm or allow to cool and place into a container and store in the fridge for up to a week.

Note

Regarding the amount of salt to use, this will vary depending on how dark the caramel is, as the salt not only works as a flavour enhancer but also mutes the bitter notes of the dark caramel.

In my instance I found that 1 1/2 tsp of Maldon salt flakes was required to sufficiently mute the bitter notes. If you’re using regular table salt, naturally a lot less will be required.

My advice would be to work in 1/4 tsp increments or pinches of salt until you’re satisfied with the final results.

Lasagne

Ingredients (serves 6):

• 8 lasagne sheets (dry or fresh)
• 500g pork & veal mince
• 1 large eggplant, sliced lengthways
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 celery stalks, diced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 2 anchovies, chopped
• 700g jar tomato passata
• 2 tbsp (about 1/2 inch) hot pancetta, diced
• 2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
• 1 ball buffalo mozzarella, shredded into chunks by hand
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan
• 1/4 cup (35g) flour
• olive oil
• 1/3 cup milk
• tomato paste
• splash of red wine
• salt and pepper
• baby basil leaves to garnish

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C and grease a large baking dish
2. Place flour in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Toss eggplant in seasoned flour, shaking off any excess. Coat large frying pan with oil and heat on medium. Cook eggplant in batches for 2 mins each side until golden. Remove from pan.
3. Cook mince in the same pan on medium heat, until browned. Stir in garlic, anchovies, parsley and passata.
4. Add in milk, red wine, stir in well and season to taste.
5. If using dry lasagne sheets, prepare them now, by boiling in salted water for 7 minutes. Remove from water and drain on clean tea towels.
6. Layer eggplant slices on the bottom of the pan and spoon the mince mixture on top. Layer lasagne sheets on top. Spread a thin layer of tomato paste on the pasta and dot with buffalo mozzarella and Parmesan. Repeat process until all ingredients are used and so that you have 4 equal layers of mince, eggplant and pasta. Ensure the top and last layer is a lasagne sheet.
7. Smear the tomato paste on top, dot with remainder of Parmesan and buffalo mozzarella.
8. Bake for 20 minutes until bubbling and cheese is golden.
9. Garnish with baby basil leaves and serve.

Cabbage Salad

100 grams peas, podded (about 250gm unpodded)
500 grams Chinese cabbage, shredded finely
1 long red chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped
1 red capsicum, julienne
80 grams parmesan, finely shaved (use a sharp knife, or a peeler to get fine slivers of cheese)
1 handful basil leaves, finely shredded

100 ml extra virgin olive oil
50 ml lemon juice

For dressing: Whisk olive oil and lemon juice together, season.

Blanch peas in boiling salted water until bright green (1-2 minutes), drain and refresh, drain again and reserve.

Mix cabbage, peas, capsicum, basil, chilli and half the cheese with the dressing. Mix gently (use your hands!) for a few minutes until the cabbage starts to wilt. Adjust seasoning then serve topped with remaining parmesan.

Autumn Panzanella

1/2 loaf bread (sourdough would be lovely, but I used homemade country white)

1 1/2 Tablespoon Tahini
juice of 1 lemon
olive oil
2 zucchini
1/2 spanish onion
1/2 red chilli
2 cloves garlic
handful of rocket

Cube the bread, spread evenly onto baking tray and dry in a warm oven until crunchy.
Slice the zucchini’s and fry til lightly browned in a little olive oil. Remove from pan and add sliced onion and cook lightly. When onion is almost done, add sliced chilli and garlic. Cook for a minute then mix with cooked zucchini in a bowl.
For Dressing:
Mix tahini with olive oil and lemon juice. This dressing will inevitable emulsify so loosen with some water as we want a runny dressing for the croutons to soak up.

Add croutons to vegetables, pour dressing over and mix well. Add rocket and season with sea salt and pepper, mix lightly to dress the leaves evenly.
Serve and eat immediately.

Almost Nicoise

3 soft boiled eggs (cover room-temperature eggs in cold water in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil, then turn down to a gentle simmer and cook for 5 mins. Remove and refresh. Peel. The yolks should still be softish and creamy.)
green beans, blanched
100g tinned tuna
potatoes, boiled until tender
2 tomatoes
1/2 spanish onion, finely sliced
salad leaves
olives

for viniagrette:
1T lemon juice,
3T very good extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper.