Pork Rolls - Meadowbank

A little gem we found a few years ago in meadowbank. The little bread shop underneath the apartments serves the best pork rolls you can get. Even compared to the pork rolls you can get in cabramatta I'd save myself the trip and go to to this place.

The pork rolls are $4 each, it's packed full of three kinds of pork, pickled carrot, cucumber, lettuce, fried onion and soy sauce. The rolls a so huge by the time the ladies are finished making them that they wrap the ends up in cling wrap before serving it in the bag.

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Nerf Wars?!! Part 2

Recently in an attempt to organize out Nerf arsenal I realized that it had grown substantially since my first Nerf post.

4 extra units and lots of ammo. My favorite is still the long clear one and the massive circular cartridge. Though the transformer is probably the most coolest.

There are foam bullets EVERYWHERE!

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Takoyaki!! Yum

After watching a cute anime episode where two kitty cats fought and chased after a takoyaki, I definitely had a huge craving for one :p.

We prepared all the ingredients for the filling and prepared the batter. If you aren't a fan of octopus you can make vegetarian ones or use different types of meat. We used some cabanossi, zucchini, sweet corn! And one of my favorites is using the laughing cow cheese, either on it's own or with sweet corn.

We used a mistral brand dutch pancake maker, it's a good one to get because there is an electric bottom so you can make it at the table or you can take the iron pan off and use it on the stove. It also has a picture of an octopus on it haha so maybe they should just name it takoyaki maker.

 

So when all the ingredients are ready spray the moulds with oil. Half fill each mould with batter and put in your filling, then fill with more batter til the mould is full. Wait for the batter to crisp up a bit, this next part gets a bit messy. Pour more batter onto the pan so it overflows and start turning and tucking in the overflowed batter into the takoyaki with skewers. Repeat that until they form into nice crispy balls.

They can be served immediately but the filling is super hot. Pour mayonnaise or bulldog sauce on top and Bonita flakes before serving. Enjoy!

All this talk of takoyaki I think we should make it again :)

Takoyaki batter Recipe

2 eggs
200g wheat flour
680ml icy water
1 tsp granulated dashi
2 tsp soya sauce
Pinch of salt

1. Crack eggs into bowl and whisk.
2. Add icy water, dashi, soya sauce, salt and whisk together
3. Add flour, sift in 1/3 at a time and mix

 

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Truly Random

Yesterday something happened that truly reflects the title of my blog. I was home in the afternoon and decided to take out the trash, the bins are only about 5-10 meters from my front gate. I threw out the trash and as I turned back there was an older Chinese lady walking towards me with some pieces of styrofoam to throw out. I smiled as you do and she started talking to me in mandarin ( my mandarin is not great, I usually resort to deciphering what they're asking through context and the few words I do understand).

It was a nice little chit chat but as I started heading into my place she asked to see the interior because the place she lives in with her daughter has the same layout except with only 2 levels instead of 3. I was shocked but I said yes because she seemed like a nice enough lady.

Here's where it begins to get more random. A few steps down the path she exclaims that she should go get her daughter to come over too and she started pulling on my arm insisting that I should come over and have a look at their place first. So with maybe a fleeting thought that I could possibly be in a Charlie the unicorn type situation I quickly locked up and head over to my neighbors.

The lady's daughter (Linny) was just as surprised about the situation and a little embarrassed I think because their place was very messy, my place is messy too I told her. So after making awkward introductions I chatted to Linny for a bit before her mother insisted on showing me their upstairs. The place was practically the same layout but without a hallway to upstairs and she had replaced the carpet with floorboards, it looked nice.

After a couple minutes Linny's mother proceeded to tell me about how she used to have a mole on her cheek in the same spot as mine and that she removed it herself by stabbing it multiple times with a needle and that it hurt for a month but after the scab fell off it never came back. @.@ it sounded pretty painful.

Anyway, we headed over to my place and my friend had been waiting for me outside. I quickly gave her a rundown of the situation which she found hilarious and let us all into the house. I showed them the garden and my plants, which I am quite proud of even though it is a little neglected. She was very interested in my vietnamese celery and shocked me again by asking for one of the babies that had started coming up around the base. So I dug up a baby plant and put it in a pot for her. Meanwhile jancypants is inside trying not to laugh.

So we head back in and I showed them the rest of the place to many comments on use of space, how big our tv is and asking if we had a son when they saw Kens nerf collection ( which has grown since the initial post) haha.

Then as her daughter Linny was trying to shooe her out because she knew that I needed to go grocery shopping for dinner, she proceeded to check out my parsley plant for babies as well.

Haha truly a random event of the evening/ month. I'm glad a got to meet one of my neighbors and that they are friendly if not a little strange haha. Tis my life's randomness :)

 

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Sweet sweet dessert day!

Yesterday a friend came over to show me how to make macaroons and in our excitement we ended up turning it into an awesome cooking day. We made macaroons, a roast pork for dinner, a snow egg and a little creme brûlée.

Here are a few peek previews and I'll link in the posts soon.

Our purple ( which turned out a lilac colour) macaroons.

My pork roast, a method I've trial over many years, its not perfect but pretty good almost every time, no major disasters.

Our snow eggs which we ended up making over three weeks. It was worth it in the end!! Extremely yummy and once we got it right it think it was as good as the one we had at quay.

And lastly our creme brûlée which we made last minute because we had a lot of egg yoke left over. It hasn't yet been eaten so I'll put up another photo of the sugary caramel top when we do.

After all that we'll definitely have to hold off on the sugar for a while :) ...... Maybe ;)

Thanks for the awesomely fun day Jancypants.

 

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Parramatta Pheonix

Phoenix in parramatta is open where the Borders used to be, level 5 towards the cinema. The place hasn't gotten much traction yet it's still quiet even at peak times. We've tried it out twice and found that it had improved the second time round.

To make sure we had a base for comparison we got our favourites ;).

What I like to call the footballs. Savory mince wrapped around a sweet mochi like skin and a crispy shell.

Glazed char siew buns, kens favourite.

Prawn in rice noodle sheets

Chicken and sticky rice, wrapped in a banana leaf.

Vege dumplings and prawn dumplings

Chicken feet

Egg tarts

Salt and paper squid

Desserts! Watermelon and jelly and silky tofu. Yum yum :)

The food isn't bad though not as good as the rhodes branch. The only thing we found a little annoying is that the cart servers were really trying to up sell their wares.

Other then that it was a pleasant experience.

 

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Miss Chu Tuck Shop - Townhall

Miss Chu tuck shop serves vietnamese style food. It is a place originally started up in Melbourne and now has opened up 4 places around Sydney's CBD. It has been described as a modern day hawker style take away place.

It was nicely decorated place with large chalk menus, stools seating around the shop and I especially loved that they had iPhone chargers in that seating area so you can charge your phone while you eat.

For larger group seating they had repurposed ironing boards and folding stools. I liked that the place had a quirky feel to it and a touch of family background.

We had to order the pho ($14)! It was cold and what better way to trial out a vietnamese place then to test the pho. It was good, not to salty and not too watery, a nice broth and meat mixture.

Free range chicken hanoi curry ($15). I loved the pho but when I had the curry it was definitely my favorite of the two. It tasted just like how my mum makes it. The potatoes are cooked so they are soft through but still hold its shape, the chicken is moist and the curry soup is slightly chilli, just to give it a nice kick.

We tried the pineapple and mint frozen young coconut juice ($7.5). It was a nice twist on an old favorite.

The place was nice and very authentic but a little price for the portions. Next time we might try the rice paper rolls, they good call Miss Chu the queen rice paper rolls.

 

Miss Chu Tuck Shop

501 George st

Sydney

Tel: +612 9283 0357

Open: Mon - Sat

11am - 9.30pm

Visited: 20th June 2012

 

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Ninja cookies!

I've been trying to find a decent cookie cutter recipe for a while to use with my ninja men cutters. I'm not a big fan of gingerbread, which is the recipe that came with the cutters, so I been testing out recipes. The previous recipes I've tried have either not been very nice or the cookies end up being Michelin ninjas.

This recipe is a base for all holiday recipes.

Sugar cookies

200g unsalted butter at room temperature

280g caster sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

400g plain flour

A pinch of salt

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Your choice of icing

1. Preheat oven to 170'C/ 325'F
   
2. Mix butter, sugar and vanilla extract with an electric mixer until light and fluffy ( may take about 10 mins)
3. Mix in the egg, scrape in the unmixed ingredients from the sides with a rubber spatula
4. Add flour, salt and cream of tartar and mix well but don't over mix. The dough should be light soft and easy to handle
5. roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut out shapes with your cookie cutters
6. Bake for ten minutes or until the edges are lightly golden and the centre is still pale
7. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before putting them on a cooling rack to cool completely before decorating

Excellent to have on their own, with a cup of coffee or tea.

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Boeuf Bourguignon and Joel Robuchon's Pommes Purée

For Ken's birthday I wanted to make him a special meal. He loves stews and he also really loved the truffled potato mash we had at Aria. While I was in Hong Kong, my sister made Boeuf Bourguignon which was awesome and sent me the recipe (a Julia Child recipe of course) so I could make it for Ken.

She also told me about Joel Robuchon's mash potatoes. They had tried it at his restaurant and after testing out the recipe herself she understood why they were only served a table spoon of the mash each. Sweat and tears goes into making it.

My plan for the night was to make the Boeuf Bourguignon (BB), Joel Robuchon's mash, sides and dessert. I was thinking of creme brûlée but ended up making mini pecan pies.

So armed with a great idea, shopping list and not a shadow of a doubt of the task ahead (aka not clue as to the enormity of the task I had set for myself) I told Ken to get home at 6.30pm for a fabulous birthday meal.

The BB recipe isn't complicated but there are lots of different things that need preparing. The mushrooms, onions and beef are all cooked separately and combined at the end.

Sautéing the mushrooms! My first try (successful try!) at tossing the mushrooms like in the movies. It was really fun and definitely a wrist strengthening workout!

The recipe calls for 1 inch onions but I didn't know where to get them in Australia. I did find some nice small onions at the fruit shop on the top floor in parramatta Westfields and just got Ken to peel back a few layers(luckily he came back early from work) which we used to cook with the beef so win win!

The onions were left to simmered for an hour. They were cooked through and so soft, sweet and still held their shape.

My entire house smelt delicious! The beef was cooked in the oven for 2.5hrs. I used my cast iron pot so the beef softened up really nicely and quickly.

While the beef was cooking I had boiled the potatoes. Definitely a sometimes food! the mash recipe calls for 900g of potatoes to 225g of butter! I started by pressing the potatoes through a sieve and then mixing in the butter. It was super easy to mix in because the potatoes were still hot. It was looking pretty good at this point.

We heated up the milk and Ken poured while I whipped the potatoes. I'd read that if you're not sweating at this point your not doing it right but unless you've got beefed up arms it feels they are going to fall off. It was definitely worth all the effort!

It was the best mash ever and I'm definitely going to try the real deal someday.

Joël Robuchon's pommes purée

900g/ 2 lbs russet potatoes
226.7g / 8 oz butter
3/4 to 1 1/4 cups milk brought to a boil and kept hot
sea salt to taste

1. Starting with cold water, boil unpeeled potatoes until a fork inserted meets barely any resistance.
   
2. Peel potatoes while still hot (very easy but I used a spoon it was too hot).
   
3. Push the potatoes through a ricer ( I just used a sieve) into a pot and stir over very low heat until steam no longer escapes (about 5 minutes)
   
4. Add butter by vigorously stirring potatoes until incorporated
   
5. Add 3/4 cup milk in a slow stream while vigorously whipping potatoes, incorporating air into the mixture. (That's the ultimate sweaty part!)
   
6. Add salt, more milk as necessary, until desired taste and texture.
   
7. For that extra level of refinement, pass through a tamis (fine sieve).
   

Boeuf Bourguignon

Beef

170g/ 6 ounce bacon and rind

1tb olive or cooking oil

1.36kg/ 3 lbs lean stewing beef cut into cubes (approx 2 inches)

1 sliced carrot

1 sliced onion

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

2 Tb flour

3 cups of full bodied, young red wine. Something that would taste nice served with the meal.

2-3 cups brown beef stock or beef bouillon

1tb tomato paste

2 cloves of garlic, mashed

1/2 tsp thyme

A crumbled bay leaf

Onions stewed in stock (see below)

Mushrooms sautéed in butter (see below)

1. Remove rind from bacon and cut bacon into lardons ( sticks approx 1cm x 3cm long). Simmer rind and bacon for 10mins in 1.5 liters of water. Drain and dry
2. Preheat oven to 230 degrees celsius / 450 degrees fahrenheit
3. Sauté bacon in the oil for 2-3 mins til lightly browned. Remove bacon and put casserole aside.
4. Reheat oil and bacon fat til it is smoking slightly before you sauté the beef. Dry the beef with paper towels and sauté a few pieces at a time until all sides are browned
5. Add it to the bacon
6. Brown the sliced vegetables in the remaining bacon fat. Discard sautéing fat.
7. Return the beef and bacon to the casserole, toss with salt and pepper. The sprinkle on the flour and toss to lightly coat the beef.
8. Set casserole in the middle position of the oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to the oven for 4 minutes more. Remove casserole and turn ove down to 160 degrees celsius/ 325 degrees fahrenheit
9. Stir in the wine and enough stock so the beef is just covered.
10. Add the garlic, herbs, tomato past and bacon rind. Bring to a simmer, then cover and put the casserole in the lower third shelf of the oven.
11. Regulate heat so the liquid is simmering very slowly for 2.5/3 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.
12. Prepare onions and mushrooms while beef is cooking.
13. When the meat is done, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve over a saucepan. Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it. Add the cooked onions and mushroom
14. Simmer the sauce in the saucepan skimming off the fat as it arises for 1-2 minutes. You should have 2.5 cups of sauce thick enough to lightly coat a spoon. Boil down if it is too thin or add stock if it is too thick. Taste for seasoning and pour sauce over the meat and vegetables.
15. Simmer for 2-3 mins basting the meat in the sauce and serve.

Onions

18-24 peeled mini white onions (1inch diameter)

1.5 tb butter

1.5 tb oil

1/2 cup of brown stock, dry red or white wine or water

Salt & pepper to taste

Herb bouquet: 4 parley sprigs, 1/2 bay leaf and 1/4 tsp thyme tied in a cheese cloth

1. Heat butter and oil in a skillet until bubbling.
2. On moderate heat sauté the onions for 10 minutes, rolling them sp they will brown as evenly as possible.
3. Pour in liquid, season to taste and add the herb bouquet.
4. Cover and simmer for 40-50 minutes until the onions are tender but retain their shape and the liquid has evaporated. Remove the herb bouquet

Mushrooms

2 tb butter

1 tb oil

225g/ 1/2 lb. fresh mushrooms whole or quartered if large

1. Heat butter and oil on high heat until the butter foamin subsides.
2. Add mushrooms and toss for 4-5 minutes
3. Remove from pan when the mushrooms are lightly browned.

Enjoy! It was absolutely delicious and well worth the effort. It tasted even better the next day.

 

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