Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

No. Not really. I am one of those people who can safely say that I have no family recipes as my parents never really cooked so there was nothing to pass down. But last week I had a play around with the pad thai sauce and came up with something I rather liked.

Basically, a pad thai should always be made one serve at a time in a heated wok or frying pan. The idea is to get all the ingredients ready to go and fry them off in quick succession. Hence the origin of the pad thai sauce. I have tried a couple of pre-made pad thai sauces and they were never really any good.

Pad Thai Sauce
(this makes about 1 cup of pad thai sauce – about 8 servings)

1. 1 small onion, finely chopped
2. 1 red chilli, finely chopped*
3. 5 tbsp of tamarind paste**
4. 8 tbsp of fish sauce (substitute with mushroom soy sauce and vegetarian oyster sauce for vegetarian version)
5. 2 tbsp of water
6. 1/2 tbsp of vegetable oil
7. 2 tbsp of palm sugar or 1 tbsp of normal sugar

Sautee the onion and chilli very slowly in the vegetable oil until the onion becomes translucent and softens. Add the sugar, fish sauce and tamarind. Add a bit of water and bring to boil (yes your kitchen will probably smell of fish sauce). Simmer very gently for about 10 minutes. Let it cool and blend with a stick blender.

(oooh double yolk!) Read the rest of this entry »

Josh made this the other night with a recipe that I suggested (got to get myself in for a bit of credit here) from Pauline Nguyen’s Secrets of the Red Lantern, which is a really, really fantastic book. I literally took it on the train and read it everyday from cover to cover. This is one cookbook I strongly recommend, not for just their great recipes (and believe me, if Josh cooked with it and it turned out well, it’s good recipes because he would follow instructions whereas I just read it once and then wing it), but for the stories of her family and all the events in their lives. I can’t recommend it enough (by the way, I got it at Costco for about $40. Score.)

We adapted a bit (again, he may have made it but I was yelling instructions ) by using beef rather than chicken and adding some green beans. This recipe was enough for the two of us plus lunches on the next day. Read the rest of this entry »

What my esteemed Chinese cookbook told me was that twice-cooked pork is a popular dish where pork is boiled and then stir-fried in chilli bean sauce. I rather thought that that would be a good way to use up the leftover roast pork.

What we would need for two hungry people:

1. 150 g. of roast pork, sliced into bite sized pieces*
2. 200 g. of yellow noodles**
3. 1/2 onion, sliced
4. 1 cup of sliced cabbage
5. 1 cup of snow peas***
6. a few green beans
7. 2 tbsp of chilli bean sauce
8. 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
9. 2 tbsp of shao hsing rice wine
10. 1 tbsp of tomato sauce
11. a few drops of sesame oil Read the rest of this entry »

This is one of those incredibly easy Thai dishes to make. It’s one of those dishes I make when I basically can’t be bothered. The original version uses yellow bean sauce but since I’m so in love with the Chinese chilli bean sauce, I used that here.  It’s also easy to omit the oyster sauce and turn it into a vegetarian dish. Serve with rice. I have never tried substituting this recipe with other types of basil but I can’t imagine they will work.

1. 1 eggplant, cut into 3cm  cubes
2. 3 tbsp of vegetable oil
3. 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
4. 1 red chilli, sliced
5. 1 green chilli, sliced
6. 4 stems of Thai basil, leaves picked
7. 1 tbsp of oyster sauce
8. 1 tbsp of chilli bean sauce
9. 1 tsp of tomato ketchup*

Heat up the oil until hot, add the eggplant pieces and stir-fried quickly. Turn the heat down slightly and keep frying until the eggplant is browned, soft and silky. Add a little of water if it becomes too dry. This takes about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and chilli and stir for a minute or so. Add the sauces and a bit of water if necessary. Add the basil leaves and turn off the heat.

* I use tomato sauce instead of sugar to round off the flavours in stronger-flavoured dishes. The tomato won’t come through, neither will the sweetness but you’ll taste the difference.

Okay, it’s Friday night and I’m getting ready to go out (again) so just a really quick post on a very light lunch from last week.

I went to the market and found a bunch of really nice looking baby silver beet, so I grabbed a bunch. I figured since I had the really good Pure Bread Bakery onion and cheese sourdough bread (i.e. a really good crusty bread), it didn’t really need much.

I used:

1. 1 bunch of baby silverbeet
2. 4 slices of crusty sourdough bread, toasted (I recommend best crusty bread you can get)
3. 2 cloves of garlic, sliced
4. 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
5. 1 tsp of salt

Carefully wash the silverbeet and remove the tough parts of the stalk. You can either chop the silverbeet into smaller pieces or slice the stalks lengthwise so that they cook faster.

Bring a pot of water to boil, salt it and blanch the silver beets for 3 minutes (I used baby silver beets so yours may need more coaxing).

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a frying pan until warm and add the garlic. Fry the garlic gently on low heat until soft. Try not to let the garlic colour. Drain and squeeze out any excess water from your silver beets and add to the pan. Sautee gently for two more minutes or until the silver beets are soft. Serve on top on the crostini.