Back at Bulleen for an impromptu cookup

Ok ... wow they move further out and we see more of them than ever. How does that work? Anyhoo, in a sort of indirect way we once again invited ourselves to dinner at J & CC's over in Bulleen.

Indecisions pushed the hands of the clock along faster and we had to satisfy ourselves with a shop at the local supermarket. We had visions of porcini mushrooms and tinned snails at Leo's but had to succumb to the god of compromise.

Feeling rather lethargic and somewhat over it, it was amazing what we achieved once we got going. DV was thumbing through a pile of recipe books and came across a roast pork recipe that he liked the look of. This called for said porcini mushrooms, but we settled for dried chinese mushrooms instead.

This was a straightforward dish that took hardly any effort. I had to salt and oil the Pork Loin and roast it on high heat for 20mins to crisp the skin. In the meantime I had the dried mushrooms soaking, and fried up the Swiss browns in olive oil with rosemary and dry sherry (which we didn't have, so I used a combo of white wine vinegar, riesling and sugar) with salt and pepper to taste. After 20 mins in the oven, you simply pour the soaked dried mushrooms with the liquid and the fired brown mushroom mix into the roasting pan, bung it back in the oven and roast on medium heat for another 2 hours.

There was a short kerfuffle over the cooking of mussels, but I won out at the end, as seafood really does go very well with pork.

The spanish tapas styled Mussels cooked in a tomato sauce fairly leapt off the page in deliciousness, but Compromise welded his sabre of division and smote us down, so we had to settlle for Basa fish fillets instead.

I found an intriguing Paper Wrapped chicken recipe which was a play on peking duck, incorporating the sweet pappy flavours with spring onion, lao cheong and vietnamese rice paper. This turned out to be a bit of a disaster as the rolls stuck to the alfoil we used to line the baking tray. Still, they pretty much all got eaten in the end.

 
DV suggested a cheats version of Murtabak and yet again Compromise proved a vertiginous child and we couldn't find any ready made roti, so we bought pastry sheets and made samosas instead ... or rather singaporean 711 curry puffs as DV said. And they really were like the triangular shaped curry puffs you find in Singapore 711s. DV pan fried some of them, and baked the rest. I preferred the Baked ones as the fried ones were a little limp.

 Cheats Murtabak - fried

 Cheats Murtabak -Baked

DV's curried mince filling was typical South East Asian style - the usual spice suspects but with the added sweetness of tomato ketchup.

To cut the richness, I made a warm salad using a sweet mirin like vinegar in my dressing which really made the dish. I will be hunting this down once I find out exactly what it was from CC.

And the evening ended with a lovely coffee that had a dash of brandy in it ... I will recommend this to you as the perfect nightcap after a heavy meal.

PS - I reckon one of my New year's resolutions should be to take better pictures ... ok to be more patient AND to take better pictures. What do you think?

2011 Off to a good start with a little lamb

Ok ... sometimes all it takes is a simple short text and before you know it you're tucking into something delicious and enjoying scintillating company. And what better way to start the year off than with a hearty hotpot meal.

When we bandied the idea of having dinner, DV was craving himself some steamboat. We eugoogle-ised steamboat melbourne and clicked on the ADOR link which gave us a long list with ratings. Unfortunately most of these referred to hotpot styles where everything is prepared for you and served in a pot! We were looking for the Chinese style steamboat which provides you the option to cook the ingredients yourself.

We thought we had lucked onto First Choice as the blurb mentioned Taiwenese Hot Pot which we mistakenly took to mean the Chinese style steamboat and it had a great rating. But we had to make our apologies and leave for a better option.

Not really knowing where else to go, DV liked the look of Little Lamb which advertised Mongolian hotpot. When we looked in we realised that it was as good an approximation of the Chinese Steamboat as ever and the place smellt inviting.

So we took a chance and sat down to one of the yummiest Asian dinners we have had together in a long time. We ordered:

Thinly Sliced Beef Brisket
Squid
Beef balls
Chai Sim
Chinese Cabbage
Fish
Black Fungus
Fresh Tofu
Tofu sticks

And we asked for a split hot and spicy and normal stock hotpot.

 
Our meal came with 3 different sauces:

Bog standard Chilli sauce
Garlic Sauce - heaven!
Chive Sauce - which DV hated and me and M absolutely adored.

In fact I had a mixture of all 3 in my dipping plate and if I could bottle this blended mess and sell it, I reckoned I'd build an entire retail empire on it alone.

Our friendly waittress was the cutest thing, but she came across as being quite pushy in terms of trying to get us to order more. Initially I thought she was working on commission, or for a frighteningly severe Tai Tai who whipped her and shoved herin the cupboard if she didn't maintain her quota of food ordered. As it turned out, we had inadvertently ordered the all you can eat buffet hotpot for $25 a head. Which meant that everything we ticked on the ordering sheet would have been included in the price. So she was encouraging us to scam as much as we could!!! Bless her little heart. She even said at the end when we asked for the bill that we should have ordered something cheaper since we weren't eating as much. Better not let Madam Tai Tai know!!

I believe there are a couple of other Little Lambs around the traps but I can recommend the Box Hill branch for good service and great food.

I think its a fantastic excuse for a regular catchup.

PS what was the one thing we didn't have at Little Lamb ... you guessed it! Little Lamb!

2011 eleven!

Ok ... the New Year starts with, you guessed it - Food:

A Bedtime Story:

And a Bang!

Happy 2011 Everyone. Thanks for all your comments and for staying faithful! And to my silent readers out there ... don't be shy! Tell me what you think. It should be one of your New Year's resolutions.

Walks ... but not along the Seine

Ok ... in an effort to keep fit and stay healthy, I have successfully convinced M to accompany me these last 2 nights on an evening constitution.

 
We have one last party to get through for the year, and then a short break before more baccalanian excess when we hit the sodden Sunshine Coast and the tropical heat of Singapore.

 
But there's nothing like a summer's evening walk along the river ... so its not the Seine, but its local and has a name as inscrutable as the Gallic tongue ... and its mine!

Hope you are seeing in the New Year in good company and some cheer. Alot of people had a fucked up year, so it may be wise to start the new one on the right foot.

Its New Years Eve, and for the moment at least, opportunities are endless, whether real or imagined.

I wish you dear readers all the best and a safe Happy New Year.

Boxing Day Bulleen

Ok ... we're at the end of the festive season, "greeting cards have all been sent, the christmas rush is through"!

So nursing slightly bruised livers and the odd brain spasm, we made our way down the chandler to our good friends J & CC in Bulleen for boxing day celebrations.

Knowing that a hot oven would have to be manned at some point, I started the day gently, making sure my first glass was emptied at a glacial pace until after kitchen duties were over and done with.

M brought his curry puffs and mini plum puds, and I made a Filipino signature dish called Chicken Adobo. It always a risk to make something that you have never made before for a party where expectations are high, especially when said party also includes your culinary nemesis who churns out restaurant quality dishes with effortless ease. I am speaking of our good friend DV.

 Final stage - adding coconut to the sauce

Chicken Adobo has relatively few ingredients, but the cooking process involves a number of different stages. It takes about 2hours to prepare and is well worth the effort. Although cooking with vinegar makes me nervous. I don't really like the stuff and I'm never sure if I have used too much or too little. The recipe I worked off called for about 3 cups of vinegar for 3kilos worth of chicken. So I was back on the "no one's going to touch it" train and most probably driving M quietly insane. I say quietly as he is now well and trully used to it and pretty much just rolls his eyes and ignores me.

 A-table

DV trumped everyone again with his home made Loh Bak which was absolutely out of this world. There's nothing like crispy bean curd skin, and the filling had just the right amount of crunch from the chestnuts.

 Loh Bak - ready for the fry pan

Served sliced with chilli sauce and cucumbers

He also contributed home style mee siam which in our part of the world is quintessential party food. DV's does not come with a sauce but he made his cheat's sambal belachan to go with it. You can easily do this at home by buying a commercial brand (I recommend Seah's) of Sambal Belachan and frying a portion of this with onions and sugar. I don't really have to tell you how yummy the whole thing was, do I.

 Mee Siam - homestyle dry version

There were other delights to sample at the table including a slab of turkish dellight covered in Rose petals which was divine and an apple slice with cinnamon made with a gluten free flour mix.

Unfortunately given our schizophrenic summer, we were unable to take advantage of the swimming pool, but whiled away the hours with wine and conversation.

 
As the party gradually diminished in numbers, the remaining dregs contemplated a barbeque and before long the chops and snags were out, and I was frying rice in a wok.

We sat down to more food and wine before an impromptu floorshow from CC which kept us entertained until it was time to go. Another sterling effort guys. Now if we can only ...

 And yes that is real unfortunately - picked up from a bin somewhere in Paris - outrageous!

Christmas Day at D's

Ok ... all I have to say about Christmas Day at D's is that we are forming a band and calling it the Pinoy Trannies!

Off to the next one ...

Christmas Eve 2010 at the H/N black hole

Ok ... I do believe that the H/N's pulled out all the stops this year and then some. As always, Captain M was at the helm of this culinary behemoth, skillfully manning his mis-en-place, while a crowd of deck hands scraped, washed, and cut their way towards our Christmas Eve repast.

Eschewing green ivy the H/N's headed straight to the Holly Berry for their decorative inspiration. Combined with the sunlight of a perfect summer's evening, the scene that met us as we walked in was one indeed of "good tidings and good cheer".

We were charged with providing an entree, and as it was to be a French theme, M prepared some chicken and mushroom voul-a-vent. But before this was served, we had a throwback from the past: Prawn Cocktails!

Preparing the prawn cocktails

A forest of Prawn Cocktails

MN actually made mayo from scratch which took the final thousand island sauce to a whole different level.

J bought some fresh plump oysters for those partial to that sort of thing at the table. And by the tone of that last sentence, you can correctly surmise that I am not. But they did look yummy.

K's mum, the lovely G, put together something called Smoked Salmon Crispy Wontons (I hope I got this right!) and they were very much worth seconds.

 G putting the finishing touches on her take on wontons

 The final product

Then it was time for M's voul-a-vents which went down a treat.

 Ready for the oven

Dispensing with tradition again, we opened a few presents and then trundled off (yup, yet again!) to Casa Tackisimo (see last year's Christmas post) to beg the question why and to muddle over how much and the damage to the environment ... but I am no scrooge (ok maybe a little bit), and seen through the eyes of a child, the lights and fixtures were a magic Christmas wonderland. With the exception of the serial killer snowman ... Merry Axemas Everyone!!!

Come to Daddy!

Safely ensconced back at the house, we sat down to another bout of tummy stretching goodness, which were the mains for the evening.

MN cooked a Duck L'Orange.

He also served a Beef Wellington with a stunning layer of home made pate that MN made from scratch (which I guess is what qualifies this as a French dish in some way):

The duck was succulent and perfectly cooked, but the beef was out of this world!!

To accompany these 2 sterling dishes were some asparagus spears served with walnuts and goats cheese. J put this scrumptious salad together and she cooked the spears in the microwave! (J, your secret is NO longer safe with me!)

We also had a carrot salad with thyme and Champagne wine vinegar and a rocket and pear salad dressed in black truffle oil which moneybags MN drizzled a veritable fountain of. Me and J scored a few drips straight out of the bottle ... Heaven! I will beg to differ with M, as I would most certainly welcome a big bowl of pasta with just olive oil and shavings of truffle! MN also made a Pommes Dauphinois - simple but so effective!

To round off the evening, J made a Tarte Tartin ... and despite her worry that it was a little burnt (see the what it should have been and the after shot below), it was delicious! M also passed round his mini plum puddings and finally dinner was at an end.

 

Nevermind

We are so blessed to have such amazing friends and to be welcomed so generously into their families. Apparently we have now been sucked into the H/N blackhole! Cheers!!!


And on to the next one ...

The folly that is Singapore ... Final

Ok ... I have one word/two characters to say to you ... Bak Kwa!!!

How do I describe the Asian love affair with Bak Kwa - sweet, succulent and smoky!! Melburnians, you are totally out of luck!!! There is no decent Bak Kwa to be found here. But beggars can't be choosers! So if you've never had it, give it a go. You can buy a single slice at some of those Chinese snack stores.

The best Bak Kwa I have had to date was in Penang, at one of those shophouses lining the island's city streets, where straddling an uneven drain trough constitutes a foot path. It was dirt cheap, and freshly roasted!

But I recently had the opportunity to sample Fish Bak Kwa!!! It was super! And so very la!!

 
I had this at a little (well maybe not so little) bar tucked away in a little side street called Bar Stop. It was a cool enough evening for us to sit outside and watch the day draw to a close.

Oh and G did the interiors by the way ...