Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

I am totally going through an asparagus phase at the moment. Every market I go to, they’re selling beautifully fresh, plump asparagus. Who am I to refuse these little beauties?

This soup was adapted from Skye Gyngell’s My Favourite Ingredients, which is really a beautiful cookbook. She writes cookbooks like she writes poetry. It’s great. As Skye said, this recipe is more like a wet, sloppy risotto rather than a soup. It is substantial for dinner.

Hearty Soup for 2:

1. 8 fat asparagus, tough parts peeled back and chopped into 3 cm pieces
2. 1.5 cups of risotto rice
3. 1 spanish onion, finely chopped
4. 3 slices of mild pancetta (about 80g), chopped
5. 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
6. 3 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked
7. 5 fresh sage leaves, chopped
8. 2 slices of dried porcini or 2 dried shittake mushrooms
9. 750 ml of hot water + 1/2 cube of Massel vegetable stock + 1 tsp of Vegeta Gourmet stock*
10. a pinch of salt and pepper
11. parmesan, shaved to serve

Heat up 1 tbsp of olive oil and slowly fry off the onion, pancetta, sage and thyme for about 10 minutes on low heat until the onion turns clear and translucent. Add salt, rice and garlic and fry until the rice is too hot to touch. Add the stock and dried mushrooms and bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add asparagus and bring back to boil for another 2 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Serve with freshly cracked pepper and shaved parmasan.

* Or use whatever light (vegetable/chicken) stock you have. I rarely do my own stock but I have started a freezer bag of off cut vegetables so once that’s full I might do up a batch of fresh stock.

I knocked this up really quickly one night when Josh was feeling a bit sick. I had quite a few veggies lying around in the fridge, and what is minestrone soup if not an excuse to use up your veggies! You should be using whatever vegetables you have on hand. Anything from cabbage to swede will do.

I use pre-made pasta sauce in this recipe for two reasons: 1) because Josh was in an ‘omg-I-must-have-food-now’ and 2) I didn’t feel like stewing the vegetables for long. I was aiming for a soup with mellow broth but with vegetables that still retained their colours and flavours.

A small batch of soup, perfectly for two:

1. 1/2 an onion, diced
2. 1/2 small carrot, diced
3. 1 small stick of celery, diced
4. 1/24 red capsicum, diced
5. 1 clove of garlic, crushed
6. 1/2 zucchini, sliced
7. 5 long beans, sliced
8. 2 cups of your favourite pasta sauce*
9. 1 cup of water
10. 1/2 cup of canned mixed beans**
11. a large handful of pasta (I broke up some spaghetti)***
12. 1 big handful of baby spinach leaves

In a saucepan, sautee the onion, carrot, capsicum and celery with a bit of olive oil on medium-low heat until softened. Turn the heat up, add crushed garlic, zucchini and green beans. Stir constantly for a few minutes. Add the pasta sauce and water. Bring to boil. Add the pasta and turn the heat down to simmer. Simmer for 10 or so minutes until the pasta is tender. Add the spinach leaves and stir for a minute until the spinach is cooked.

Grate some parmasan or pecorino cheese on top. Serve with buttered fresh crusty bread.

* I used Dolmio’s Extra Garlic
** I used the Safeway homebrand three-bean mix here because it’s the only canned mixed beans without kidney beans (Josh is allergic) but feel free to try whichever brand that takes your fancy.
*** I’m led to believe leftover broken bits of long pasta is the traditional. I think I prefer short pasta. Easier to eat.

Last post on my Central Australia trip. Yay! Are you guys bored of reading about it yet?

(Bush food – an Aboriginal survival presentation at Alice Springs Desert Park)

We spent the last two nights in Alice Springs before travelling back to Melbourne. We drove from Alice Springs to Adelaide (yes in one day) before a stop over in Adelaide and then back to Melbourne the next day. I don’t think I can ever drive that much in one day again.

(Joshua’s kinda carbonara)

Just some quick pictures of a few meals that we cooked ourselves in Alice Springs as we were back to having a fully equipped kitchen. We did a round of fresh food shopping at Coles in Alice Springs, which was rather big and very stocked.

(the carbonara sauce, recipe here)

Josh made spaghetti carbonara, his usual way with mushrooms and capsicum. We had it for lunch back at the apartment one day.

I made stir-fried beef with onion, chilli and snow peas (recipe here, just add snow peas).

The snow peas were nice at the supermarket so I bought them instead of green beans. I served it with rice and omelet soup.

(omelet soup)

Omelet soup!?! Yep. Omelet soup. I might talk about it sometime later to include recipe but now is not the time.

Also made some more pasta sauce (with broccoli, zucchini, olives, bacon and capsicum) using the Leggo’s stir-through sauce for lunch on the road.

(rock wallaby)

And that concludes most of the foods that had been consumed during my time away from home! I shall leave you with some pictures of a cute rock wallaby at the Heavitree Gap resort in Alice Springs and Adelaide’s West Beach.

More Melbourne eating from now on!

(Chicken and Tortilla Soup, topped with avocado, lime and coriander)

This is part 1 out of 3 from this week’s $20 Feast.

The main reason I wanted to do this soup is because it’s fabulous using leftover roast chicken and that’s what I had plenty of. We were at the supermarket late the other night and came across a nice looking barbecued chicken so we thought why not. They make really good sandwiches and other things.* If you don’t have leftover roast chicken, just use some fresh chicken breast instead. Poach it in the stock first and then slice and add to the soup.

So what you’ll need (this makes four servings of soup):

1. 1 litre of chicken stock
2. 1 tbsp of butter
3. 1 stalk of celery, chopped (leaves reserved for stock)
4. 1 small carrot, diced (peel reserved for stock)
5. 1/2 onion, diced
6. 1 garlic, chopped
7. 1 fresh coriander  (4-5 stalks), leaves reserved, stalked chopped
8. 1.5 cups of leftover roast or barbecued chicken, no skin
9. 1 tsp ground cumin
10. 1 tsp ground coriander
11. 1/2 tsp chilli powder
12. 1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
13. 1/3 canned diced tomato
14. 1 tbsp tomato paste
15. 2 corn tortilla
16. wedges of lime, to serve
17. 1/2 avocado, cubed to serve

Making chicken stock

(freshly made chicken stock)

So first things first, the stock. I find that supermarket barbecue chicken bits (skin, wings, frame, bones) make fantastically rich chicken stock. And fast too! I placed a litre of filtered water, handful of chicken bits (that we didn’t really want to eat, no stuffing though!), some carrot peels, some young yellow celery leaves (don’t add the dark green stalks) and tough stalks. You can add a bit of stock powder if you like, I tend to do that instead of salt. Bring the stock to boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Skim off any fat.

Putting the soup together

Heat some butter in a saucepan and sautee onion, celery, coriander stalks and carrot on medium heat until soft. Add bay leaf, garlic and chicken. Turn the heat up and stir for a minute or so until heated through. Add ground cumin, ground coriander, chilli powder, canned tomato and tomato paste. Add 3/4 of the  stock and bring to boil. Simmer for 20 minutes. Taste and season accordingly. If desired, add more stock.

Garnishing the soup

Take the two corn tortill and either cut them into strips and deep them or spray some cooking oil and microwave on high for about 1 minute. Once cooled, the tortilla will be come crispy.

Cut avocado into cubes.

To serve, ladel the soup into a soup bowl. Top with avocado and the crispy tortilla (crack them if they are still whole) Garnish with some coriander leaves and serve with a wedge of lime squeeze over the soup. ¡Buen apetito!

* That chicken ended up being numerous sandwiches, this soup, chicken a la king, and barbecued chicken and veggie stir-fry. Talk about stretching one chookie!

I love chicken noodle soups – there are so many different varieties. This is the second version (see the first one) of my chicken noodle soup.

Making the stock

I use (for two large bowls of soup):

1. 1 whole chicken breast, with skin on
2. 3 cross slices of ginger
3. 4 fresh coriander stems and roots
4. 2 garlic cloves, crushed
5. 1 tsp black pepper corns
6. 2 spring onions
7. 1/2 tsp of rock salt

Place all the ingredients in a medium saucepan and cover them with a litre of filtered water. I prefer filtered water as I don’t like the icky chlorine smell in tap water. Also we live in a unit that’s about 100 years old, I have no idea how old the plumbing is!

Bring the stock to boil and turn the heat right down to simmer. This way you are very slowly cooking the chicken breast. Because we’re using chicken breast, which does tend to dry out, it’s very important that we cook the chicken as slowly as possible so we’ll end up with beautiful, silky chicken rather than dry and horribly tough chicken. If you decide to use another cut, thigh fillet, for example, you can cook it at higher heat but it tends to make the chicken stock a bit too fatty for my liking. Josh doesn’t like fatty cuts of meat (whereas I’m a big fan. We are basically The Sprats here.)

Leave the stock to simmer at very low heat for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, we need to prepare the trimmings.

I use (for the two of us):

1. 1/2 kg of fresh rice noodles
2. 3 spring onions, finely chopped
3. 2 tbsp of chopped coriander leaves
4. 2 tsp of fried shallots (I don’t have it today but you can buy them pre-made)

Once the chicken is cooked through, fish it out and let it cool. I usually don’t and suffer ouchie scalded fingers afterwards. Leave the stock on the simmer. Shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces and marinade them in:

1. 3 tbsp of light soy sauce
2. 1 tbsp of specialty soy sauce*
3. 1/2 tsp sugar
4. 1 tsp sesame oil
5. pinch of salt and pepper
6. 4 tbsp of chicken stock

Blanch a bok choy for each person in the boiling stock for about a minute. Blanch the rice noodles in a lot of hot water or according to packet instructions. Place them in a bowl, followed by the bok choy. Top with the chicken and a couple of tablespoons of the marinade. Sprinkle with the chopped spring onions, corianders and fried shallots (if you’re using).

Turn the heat up on the stock until it’s boiling. Pour the boiling stock over a strainer onto the noodles. It’s important that the stock is boiling, otherwise you’ll find that once you pour it on top of other ingredients, the soup won’t be hot enough.

If you’re a vegetarian, my friend Mat has a suggestion on how to make a vegetarian chicken noodle soup for when you’re sick:

1. Boil water, paying careful attention to sending healing vibes throughout the water.
2. The end.

* By specialty soy sauce, I mean flavoured soy sauces such as mushroom-flavoured soy sauce,  seafood seasoning soy sauce. , etc. If you don’t have it, just use normal light soy sauce.