Squid in Garlic and Pepper Sauce (Plamuk Tod Gratian Prikthai)

I totally have a sick fascination with cleaning out squid. I never buy pre-cleaned squid tubes or rings. There is no fun in that. I like to buy a whole squid from a fish monger and then clean it out myself. I like the sliminess of ink sacs, cardboardy backbone and half-digested fish.

Anyway, enough about my ridiculous seafood habit. Yes I started this post ages back and no now is not the time. While we are back to the normal aesthetically pleasant white background, I bring bad news. My grandmother is really unwell so I’m off to Thailand for a week or for as long as it takes. Good news is I will be surrounded by family and all the lovely Thai food but bad news is it won’t be a good family moment.

I leave you with a simple, classic Thai dish since I have written most of it before now anyway:

Serves 1 or 2 as shared meal

1. 1 fresh squid, cleaned and sliced into bite-sized pieces
2. 2 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
3. 2 large cloves of garlic (again)
4. 1/2 tsp of white peppercorn
5. 2 fresh coriander roots, cleaned
6. 1 tbsp of fish sauce
7. a pinch of sugar
8. 2 tbsp of coriander leaves, chopped

Fry the sliced garlic in some oil until golden. Set aside. Pound the rest of the garlic, peppercorn, coriander into a paste. Heat oil in a wok until smoking, add the garlic/coriander/pepper paste and stir fry for half a minute. Add the squid, stir. Add fish sauce and sugar and stir fry for about another minute. Sprinkle with coriander leaves and crunchy garlic.

Be back when I’m back.

Melbourne Food Review: Roule Gallette French Creperie, Flinders La.

(Monsieur K:  melted raclette and prosciutto – $14.00)

To be perfectly honest, I really don’t like black background. Nor do I like this WordPress skin. I hate fixed width. It’s 2010. Let’s not be skimp! 800px is O.V.E.R. Anyway enough about web design commentary (seeing as I am hopeless under qualified). As you may be aware Spatula, Spoon and Saturday is taking part in the Great Australian Internet blackout. Yes, I am mentioning this in every post until I go back to the normal skin.

(Escargot:  snails in white garlic and parsley sauce – $12.00)

So this little French cafe was such a find. We walked past it one day and thought that cafe is so French and cute, we should have our lunch there. So one lunch time, Nicole, the LMT boys and I ended up there for lunch. As there were quite a few of us and we didn’t book a table, we were surprised that they were willing to shift people to accommodate us. I felt awful but the crepe and gallete were worth it!

(the inside of my galette)

The menu said ‘Escargot: Filled with 8 Snails in a white sauce with garlic and parsley. That’s so French…‘ so who am I to not go for it? I am such a sucker for anything ethnic. I have never had escargot before and I didn’t expect it to be any good as I was pretty sure it would be tinned snails. Well it was but it was very tender – kindly a really well cooked calamari and went perfectly well with the sauce. I totally recommend it though just for the fact that you can say you have had French snails!

Crispy Zucchini Flowers with Ricotta, Mint and Lemon Zest

I know I have been slack. But let’s not make excuses. There’s no other reason other than me being slack. On second note, for the next few days, Spatula, Spoon and Saturday is taking part in the Great Australian Internet Blackout hence why you may (or may not) notice that the main colour of this blog is now black.

So let’s get to it. We dropped by to visit Josh’s dad, Jim who has a bit of a green thumb. His partner, Judy, took us out to their veggie patch where I managed to get hold of some very nice zucchini flowers. I suspect they were relieved that I wanted the flowers because their zucchini plants were giving out massive number of zucchini.

Not only we scored zucchini flowers and zucchinis, we also got some of the best tasting strawberries, plums (seriously these plums are so fragrant and amazing), fresh onions, about five different varieties of tomatoes, lemons and cucumbers.

So this recipe being inspired by Guy Grossi, whom I saw making a dish similar to this at one of his cooking demonstrations, and vague recollection of his recipe cards, I came up with this.

You’ll need:

1. 8 zucchini flowers (the ones with young zucchini attached to them are nice)
2. 200 g. ricotta
3. 2 tbsp of soft goat cheese or curd
4. 5 fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
5. zest of 1 lemon *
6. 1 red chilli, deseeded completely and finely chopped
7. salt & pepper to taste

This Is Why I Don’t Watch TV

I do have a TV but I happen to live in a hundred year old double-bricked building situated in a TV reception blackhole. So I don’t watch TV. There is no watching TV at home. It has been working out really well as I haven’t watched any TV in about three years (saved for the time in Singapore where I had Discovery Travel & Living and Asian Food Channel).

Unfortunately, my boss has lent me a box set of five seasons of NCIS. Trashy TV which I rather like.

That’s why I haven’t been blogging. Sorry. That, and the fact that I ate wayyyyy too much during Christmas so I haven’t really been out anywhere exciting.

But will be back soon. I only have a few episodes to go.

Sweet Tomato, Goat’s Cheese and Basil Risotto

I love risotto. Naturally we have it a lot more often in winter but this was another one of those menu that was born out of cupboard staples and had a distinctively summer feel to it. I am a big fan of tomatoes for breakfast, so we always have at least 3-4 tomatoes hanging around in the fruit bowl.

This recipe was inspired by Jamie Oliver’s tomato, basil and ricotta risotto but naturally I lost it half way and started doing my own thing. Hey, like I said, it hasn’t turned out badly yet.

Risotto for two people who are in lurrve

1. 1 cup of arborio rice
2. 1 onion, finely chopped
3. 1/2 bulb of baby fennel, finely chopped*
4. 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
5. 3 very ripe, sweet tomatoes, chopped into large chunks.
6. 3 large chunks of marinated goat’s cheese (about 80 g.) **
7. 3 tbsp of standard dressing (i.e. one part olive oil, one part balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper)
8. a sprinkling of dried chilli flakes
9. 4 large leaves of fresh oregano, thinly slices ***
10. 1 handful of fresh basil leaves
11. 1 litre of vegetable stock, simmered (I use 1 tbsp Vegeta Gourmet Stock powder + 1/2 cube of Massel veggie stock)

Dress the tomatoes with the standard dressing and set aside. Sprinkle the goat’s cheese with the chilli flakes and organo and grill for ten minutes or until golden.

Heat a glug of olive oil in a sauce pan and fry off the onion and fennel gently for ten minutes on low heat. Add garlic and cook for another minute. Turn the heat up, add the rice and fry until hot to touch. Ladle in some hot stock. Keep stirring and add the stock one ladle at a time. Add 2/3 of the tomatoes half way through. Cook, stirring and keep adding stock until the rice is soft and creamy but firm to bite in the middle.

Stir in the rest of the tomatoes, grilled goat’s cheese and the basil leaves. Rest for one minute and then serve immediately, drizzled with a good grassy olive oil. Yum.

On hindsight, really, I should have pretended that this was my Cookbook Challenge Week 7 but it’s too late. I’m going to hit post now.

* I had the fennel left over from something else, you can use celery instead.
** As mentioned previously, marinated goat’s cheese (soft and creamy) is our fridge staple (having a cheese maker for a brother-in-law does have its advantages). You can use ricotta or other soft goat’s cheese instead. Drizzle a bit of oil on it before roasting.
*** A few pinches of dried oregano is fine but hey it’s summer and I have a pot of oregano.

This is an appreciation bit for my oven

I love my oven. I don’t care if it’s a second hand bought rental oven. It’s old. In fact, it may even be called retro. But It rocks. I have had brand new oven. I have used my parent’s whiz bang oven. I have used other friends’ whiz bang ovens. But mine rocks the most. You know why?

It’s a gas oven. Get gas. Seriously. Having an electric oven is like having electric hotplates.