Thai green curry with tofu, mushrooms & greens

Another Thai holiday influenced dish and Jonathan's new favourite to make. We tend to vary between red curry & green curry to keep it interesting. 

To make the rice, rinse long grain basmati rice well in cold water ( we use 3/4 cup of rice for 2 people). Drain, cover in lots of cold water & leave to soak for half an hour.  

To cook the rice, drain the soaking water & cover with 1 1/2 cups of water (that is, double the amount of rice you are using). Add 2 cardamon pods & a small piece of cinnamon bark. Place on a high heat & once it boils cover with a lid & turn the heat down to the lowest possible flame. Leave for 11 minutes & then turn the heat off, leaving for another 5 minutes. Then left the lid and fluff the rice with a fork, letting out any extra moisture. 

To make the curry, buy some interesting mushrooms, like King, Oyster or Enoki. Chop them into chunky pieces. We like to use Swiss Brown too. For our greens, we use brocollini, asparagus, spring onion & snow peas. We love to use the puffy tofu as it soaks up all the sauce. 

Brown the mushrooms & tofu & set aside. Jonathan adds garlic oil too. 

We use Ayam Curry Paste - the Red Curry paste is vegetarian but the Green has shrimp paste in it. We also use Ayam Coconut Cream - it has no added ingredients so allows for cracking.

To crack the coconut cream, heat a dry wok and add half the tin of coconut cream and at a moderate heat don't stir it and let it boil away. Eventually the oil will separate meaning you won't need to use any other oil for the rest of your curry. Add 2-3 tablespoons of curry paste, depending on the size of your curry.

Next, add your mushrooms & tofu, leaving the greens till last as they don't take much cooking.

Add a bit of palm sugar (about a teaspoon) or brown sugar to taste. Then add Thai basil and its ready to serve. Garnish with coriander and fresh lime & you're good to go!

Green papaya salad

Visiting Thailand recently has had a big influence on Jonny's cooking of late - as you'll see in the next couple of entries. 
We're also lucky enough to live close to Ashfield, which is home to one of Sydney's biggest Chinese communities. The quality & freshness of the fruit & veges available are so exciting - & they're so cheap! The supermarkets also stock a huge variety of tofu, sauces, pastes & spices.
To make this salad, start with the dressing. I know this isn't vegetarian. You apparently can find vegetarian 'fish' sauce & 'shrimp' paste, but we couldn't so went ahead as I eat seafood anyway & Jonathan has started eating anchovies again. (Which doesn't explain the shrimp paste but I think he'll just take the hit sometimes for the sake of a delicious meal).
To make the dressing, mix shrimp paste, fish sauce, grounded chillis, garlic, shallots, a little bit of palm sugar & lime juice in a large bowl. This makes a delicious hot, sour & spicy mixture. Into the dressing, julienne half a green papaya and mix in with bean sprouts, tomato, mint, coriander & chunks of puffed tofu. 
Bruise all together in a large mortar & pestle if you can, or in your mixing bowl.
Serve into large bowls & mix through peanuts for a bit of crunch.
I also feel like I should explain that this was made with a very firm yellow papaya as its all we could find this day - but we've since had it with green papaya and I think either is fine.
You can see my salad is topped with some BBQ garlic prawns too but Jonathan's was just fine with only tofu. We served with a Cosmopolitan each too - just trying to recapture that Thai holiday feeling. 

Fettucine (plural) with artichoke & green olives

My Italian teacher laughed herself silly when she was explaining to us that words like fettucine and spaghetti are plurals. 'You wouldn't eat one spaghetto!' she explained. Of course. Then she gave another example: 'You know, like zucchini. You'd never buy one zucchino!' To which most of us mumbled, ' Um, actually, I would....' 

Anyway, this fabulous fettucine dish was made by Jonathan last week after a visit to the local deli near his work, where he bought some marinated artichokes and green olives.

I've mentioned before that he uses vege stock to add to his pasta, which gives it a delicious savoury flavour. To this he added his deli ingredients, dried porcini mushrooms & some brie. The brie melted into the pasta and gave the dish a really nice edge. The artichokes were delicious and not dry as some can be, which is why Jonathan visits that deli every week. 

We were walking towards the deli the other day and Jonathan egged me on to try to speak Italian to the owner. I was quickly trying to compose some sentences in my head but when we got there, there was a Chinese woman behind the counter. At least she won't laugh if I buy one zuchino! (I hope). 

Mel takes a turn

Just in case it seems I do no cooking & just lie around the lounge blogging, here is an offering I came up with last Friday. After a busy day and lots of eating out during the week it felt like time for a home cooked meal. Having been out a lot, there wasn't anything obvious in the fridge to make. Sometimes this is when I feel most inspired.

Roast field mushrooms are a bit of a staple in our house so this time I mashed some kumara and put it on top, with parmesan and rosemary. I also made a salsa out of cherry tomatoes, capsicum and olives. I finely chopped these, mixed them in a bowl and dressed with olive oil, black pepper & white balsamic.

For our protein I did haloumi in baking paper with picked garlic, thinly sliced lemon & rosemary. Yum! So you see, I do take a turn cooking. At least once a week. 

Voulez-vous manger du fromage avec moi ce soir? (Will you eat cheese with me tonight?)

I'm not really sure how to describe this meal without using superlatives. In short, it was amaaaaaazing. 

Jonathan bought a french camembert which had been aged in a thin wooden box. (If you can't find this kind of cheese you could put a camembert in a ramekin for baking). 
First he peeled three garlic cloves & dipped them in boiling water to take the acidity out of them. These were then cut in halves and pushed into the cheese. Next he covered it with sage & rosemary and poured over a generous serve of red wine so the cheese was well soaked. He then put it in the oven in a baking dish and baked it on a moderate heat until the top caramelised.

Jonathan then served the cheese as a fondue into which we dipped crumbed fried mushrooms, roasted brocolini, beetroot & radish. Lemone wedges squeezed over the mushrooms helped to cut through the richness of the cheese.
Out. Of. This. World.

Kill the fatted courgette - we're having a roast

I've mentioned before how my Mum laughs when I say we're having a roast (see Who Invited the Vegetarians to the BBQ?) as she can't imagine a roast with no meat! I've made a few 'roasts' this winter & love the winter veges available.

This night we had field mushrooms with cherry tomatoes and garlic on them; brocollini - also with some cherry tomatoes as it keeps it moist; eggplants; courgettes; onions & garlic.

Of course its not a real pretend roast without the golden potatoes, which we had with kumara & rosemary. And just so it wasn't all vegetables, we had golden pan fried haloumi too. 

This has been Sydney's coldest winter in 30 years apparently - having a roast is a good way to forget all about how cold it is outside. Unfortunately I wasn't quite as organised as my Mum who usually makes rhubarb crumble when she makes a roast. Something to aspire too, if not the meat. 

A sandwich by any other name would taste so good....

I have to admit, the first time Jonathan offered to make 'cheese & tomato sandwiches' for dinner I felt rather underwhelmed. Images of soggy lunchbox offerings came to mind; country tea room menu staples at best.
But now I LOVE it when Jonathan makes these for dinner. He toasts baguettes & fills them with fried haloumi, tomato, olive tapenade, rocket, basil, olives & a delicious assortment of condiments. Our favourites at the moment are Branston pickle and yellow piccalilli.
We sometimes have these on a Monday, when I don't get home from Italian until about 9.30pm. A tasty & very filling late night dinner.