To Melly, With Love

This is my dear friend Mel. A week and a half ago Melly walked down the aisle and became Mrs W. Damn, I can't call her Mrs W, she's younger than me! As I write this, she's enjoying (I hope) her two week honeymoon in Vanuatu.

Young Mel and I have been friends for almost 10 years now. You wouldn't guess where we first met.... Route 57 West Maribyrnong/City Tram! LOL Is this starting to sound like a love story or what? Mel and I used to live down the road from each other, she on the Flemington side of Racecourse Road and me on the Kensington side of Racecourse Road.

St Aloysius (Girl's) College was where Mel went to and where her mum Cathy was educated too; and I joined St Al's (as we call it) in 1997 when I migrated to Melbourne from Malaysia. Route 57 was the tram that we travelled on to school everyday.

Mel's house was located on a street that was between two tram stops and for some reason or other she used to board the tram from the stop before mine and her elder brother Ant would board the tram from tram stop where I would get on the tram. We used to joke that it was: (a) so that his friends wouldn't know that she was his little sister and (b) so that the girls from our school (lots of girls from our school on the same tram) wouldn't know that she was his little sister because all the girls would sneak peeks at him when he'd get on the tram, for you see big Ant was a probably the cutest boy on the tram. (Tall, fair and handsome LOL)

Anyway, Mel would get on the tram from the stop before and stand at the front of the tram behind the driver so when I get on the tram the first person I would see is her. Since we both had the same school uniform on, we'd smile and say hi to each other every morning. Me, being a newbie, would move into the middle of the tram because "that's what the tram conductor says to do" so that people from the following stops could get on the tram easily and proceed to the next stop in time.

One day, the tram arrived late (probably because the previous tram broke down), packed like a sardine can and Mel and I ended up standing next to each other at the front of the tram, behind the tram driver. We said our regular hi's and somehow or rather started chatting and I found out that she was in the same year as I was but in a different home room. We discovered that we both share a passion for netball and sports and that we literally lived 5mins from each other. To cut a long story short, from that day onward we became friends and Mel started catching the tram from 'my' tram stop.

Then one day I told Mel about the cute guy who always catches the tram from our stop but he'd be on the tram before us, she was curious and wanted to see the cute guy too so we arranged to meet up earlier so that we could 'check out' the cute guy that I was talking about. That was when things went downhill...When the cute guy turned up, Mel couldn't stop laughing! (I thought she was going mad) She went over, said "hi" and gave him a peck on the cheeks. I was like totally shocked! There I was trying to comprehend the situation, my brain struggled in that 1 long minute to understand: 1) Why was Mel laughing so hard, 2) she kissed him!!!???!! I was like, OMG this girl's got guts!

It turned out that the cute guy was her brother Anthony who was in the year above us. I was like OMG.. need a place to hide! LOL. We had a good laugh about it though. There I was thinking Mel's got guts and turns out it's her brother. Could've fooled me! and she did!

We both graduated Year 12 in 1998 and sort of went separate ways for a little while as I enrolled in Monash University in Clayton and she went to Victoria University in Footscray, a bit closer to home. It was our passion for sports that brought us back together when she invited me to play basketball with her family friends and later on we played netball together and still did until earlier this year when we both injured ourselves (and her Mum banned us from netball until after the wedding!).

Anyway, Mel is a very dear friend (and like a little sister) to me and I felt very priviledge that she thought the same of me when she asked me to be her Maid of Honour at her wedding (that occured a few weeks ago). ... By now you're probably wondering.. so what does this have to do with food? ;) This is how it's related:

For Mel's hen's party celebrations, we arranged for a weekend away at her parent's holiday house in Ocean Grove, VIC. The party was to start on Friday night with cocktail party, nibbles and lots of Singstar and to finish up with some Mini Golf and Dinner on the Saturday night. In the weeks leading up to the hen's weekend, Mel became very unsettled and stressed (as all brides would/might?) so I decided to make a little change to our Friday plans by ditching the nibbles and arranging an intimate dinner for those of us who started the celebration that day. I had the day off work on the Friday to go up earlier with Cathy so that we could decorate the place and get some food and drinks before Mel and her friends arrived; Mel was to drive down after work (about 1 1/2hrs drive from the city).

I figured, if I was Mel, and I was driving down after work, the last thing I would want to do is sit around eat nibbles and drink cocktails/champagne. So I decided that I would cook the 6 of us a nice 3 course meal and I was sure that we'd all appreciate that more than nibbles after a long day of work. In my books, a good solid meal is always better than lots of nibbles when you're exhausted.

As I know Mel was on a semi restricted diet due to 'have to fit into wedding dress' syndrome* and I was looking out for myself too, having not exercised for months because of the foot injury; I decided to go with something low fat and healthy and made the following:

Entree:
Kathy's Chicken Meatballs w/ Mango Chutney and Redcurrant Sauce

Main:
Baked Fish w/ Herbs, Grape Tomatoes and Parmesan Cheese
sides: Baked potato stack and brocollini

Dessert:
Roasted Strawberries Meringues

Kathy's Chicken Meatballs, so called because I first tasted these meat balls when one of my bosses Kathy made them as part of a farewell maternity leave party we held for one of our colleagues at work. These meatballs are superb! The ingredients are fairly simple and not too fancy yet they pack a great punch served with the mango chutney and red currant sauce. Spicy (because of the spices), sweet, tangy and juicy all together. The capsicum and lettuce was my touch as I wanted to serve them in lettuce cups - Sang Choy Bao style but since we didn't want to waste food unnecesarily^, I decided to just serve the meatballs on a slice of lettuce for a touch of green.

^Cathy (Mel's mum) told me not to get another lettuce because she was already getting some for the bbq lunch the next day.

Kathy's Chicken Meatballs w/ Spicy Sauce

Ingredients:
500 – 750 g minced chicken
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1 small onion
1 small can water chestnuts
¼ cup chopped fresh coriander leaves
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1 egg
2 teaspoons sweet chili sauce
½ teaspoon cumin )
½ teaspoon ground coriander) optional use any spices to your own taste
Salt & Pepper
Oil for frying

Using a food processor or stick blender process onion, water chestnut and coriander until roughly chopped. Put minced chicken, breadcrumbs, onion mixture sauce and spices in a bowl and add beaten egg. Mix for about 3 minutes until mixture comes together then form into small balls. Heat oil in pan then fry balls until golden. Remove from pan and drain on paper towel.

Sauce:
½ cup sweet mango chutney
½ cup red currant jelly
Juice of small lemon (use ½ then add to taste)
small red capsicum (or yellow) diced.

In frying pan heat chutney, red currant jelly and lemon juice and mix together. Add in diced capsicum. Place meatballs in sauce over a low heat and shake pan to cover in the sauce. This takes about 5 minutes to heat the meatballs through (may be heated from frozen but allow more time)

This dish, I came up with by combining Tobie Puttock's Roasted Milk Potatoes and a baked fish variation from one of Jamie Oliver's cookbooks. I can't remember which now. At first, I was a bit skeptical about how the parmesan cheese would go with the fish, but surprisingly they go really well together! I think it might have been the sharpness taste in the parmesan cheese that actually gave the fish a bit of more flavour since it was only seasoned with olive oil, parsley, salt and pepper. And we all know how well cheese and tomatoes go together :)

Apologies in advance for the sketchy instructions because I kinda just made it up and went with whatever I remembered.

Baked Basa Fillets w/ Grape tomatoes and Parmesan Cheese

Ingredients:

Basa fish fillets (or you could use any white fish fillets)
1 punnet Grape tomatoes or Cherry tomatoes
Parsley, chopped
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
Parmesan cheese (to your taste)
Garlic, finely chopped

Lay fillets in a large baking tray and season with garlic, olive oil, parsley, salt and pepper. Ensure that the fillets are well coated with seasoning. Slice tomatoes in halves and drizzle a bit of olive oil onto the tomatoes and mix well before scattering them onto the fillets. Bake for about 12-15mins (ensure that the fillet is cooked) and grate parmesan cheese onto the top of each fillet (amount to your preference) and grill under the griller until cheese melts and then serve.

Note: Cooking time may vary depending on the type of fish used and if your fish is not well thawed it might take a bit longer than 10 -1 5mins. My problem is that my fish was still quite frozen and I actually had to cook it for a while longer than 15mins.

Roasted Potatoes with milk

Ingredients:
Potatoes
Rosemary
Salt and Pepper
Milk (enough to cover the potatoes)

Wash, peel (optional) and slice potatoes into 0.5cm thin slices. Place potatoes in a large bowl, season with salt and pepper and rosemary and toss well to combine. Fill bowl with enough milk to cover all the potatoes and leave aside for about 30mins.

Preheat oven to 180 C. Arrange potato slices onto a baking tray lined with baking paper or an oiled tray (which ever is your preference) and bake until potatoes are crispy. I think it took about 15mins or so.

I decided to stack my potatoes into a small stack and served the fish with some blanch some brocollini, drizzled with the pan juices from baked fish.

Donna Hay lovers would recognise this recipe! It's from the current edition of DH Magazine. Roasted Strawberries meringues. I have never made meringues before and was a bit nervous about it but they looked so pretty in the magazine, I just couldn't resist! I premade the meringues the night before we left of course :)

Roasted Strawberries Meringues served with a dollop of cream and roasted strawberries, drizzled with left over syrup.

Ingredients:

150ml egg whites (approx 4 eggs)
1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp white vinegar
1 1/4 cup thick (double) cream to serve

Preheat oven to 120 C. Beat egg whites in with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Gradually add the sugar and vinegar and beat until the mixture is thick and glossy. Place spoonfuls of mixture onto baking trays lined with non-stick baking paper. Make a small dent on the centre of the meringues to creat a nest and bake them for 25minutes or until the meringues are crisp on the outside. Turn off the oven and allow the meringues to cool in the oven for 30mins.

Roasted Strawberries
16 strawberries, hulled and halved
1/3 cup caster sugar

Preheat oven to 200 C. Place strawberries in a small baking dish and sprinkle with caster sugar. Roast for approximately 10 - 15mins or until strawberries are soft and syruppy. Remove and set aside.

To serve, simply spoon strawberries into the centre of each meringue and top with cream.

Makes about 30 - 35 meringues.

I kinda played a bit with the left over syrup from the roasted strawberries, somehow got the idea to make these semi circles on the plate. I thought it was pretty cool. :)

So we spent the rest of the night boozing on Midori splices and some funny cocktails that the other girls concocted, the three girls from Mel's work got absolutely smashed and was outta batteries the next day when we went mini-golfing. We had dinner at a restaurant in Ocean Grove called 13 Steps. Nothing to blog about there. I was so disappointed with my order I didn't bother taking photos of it. But we had a fabulous weekend nonetheless.

I was wrecked from the weekend, but nevertheless, nothing gives me pleasure more than cooking for a friend and Mel is more than just a friend.. who deserves a little spoiling every now and then :)

*The dressmaker told Mel that the dress would fit better if 'they worked together' and she lost a bit around the waist, rather than get the bigger size and alter it to fit her.

HHDD#6 - Malaysian Prawn fritters / a kiddie favourite

It's Hay Hay It's Donna Day (HHDD) time again and this time it's hosted by jenjen of Milk and Cookies. Jenjen was the winner of the previous HHDD event Savoury Tarts organised by Tami of running with tweezers and in tradition of the blog event, the winner of the round gets the honour of hosting the next round of HHDD.

When jenjen unveiled the theme for round 6 as F for Fritter, the first thing that came to my mind was CUCUR UDANG!! Cucur Udang or Prawn fritter is one of my favourite all time fritter. It's a Malaysian delicacy and it ranks right up the top of my fritter favourites list along with Cucur Bawang (Onion fritter), Pisang Goreng (Fried Banana a.k.a Banana Fritter), Corn fritters and Cempedak Goreng (Jackfruit fritter - for simplicity we'll call it jackfruit)

Growing up in Malaysia, I have fond memories of prawn and onion fritters as it was the best serving of food they had in the school canteen of the schools that I was educated in. In Malaysia, we have two schooling sessions in a day. Starting at 7:35am til 1:10pm for the morning sessions and from 1:10pm til 6:30pm for the afternoon sessions. We were only allowed one recess for the day because the kids in the morning would go home for lunch whilst the kids in the arvo would come to school after lunch. Recess would be at 10:30am and 3:15pm every day.

I remembered as a kid that my friends and I would be at the edge of our seat at at 5mins to recess and take turns to peek at the clock in the class room and the teacher, counting the last 5 minutes as they went buy, fingers crossed, hoping that she/he would finish their session in time. As soon as the recess bell rings, two of us would bolt out in time to be the first few at the canteen to buy the first onion fritter of the day.

The school canteen at the primary school where I was educated used to sell them for 10cents a piece and they were huge fritters, the size of a tennis ball and when you're 10 years old, 3 or 4 of them will fill you up until the end of the day at 1:10pm.

So.. they were ONLY huge balls of fried batter filled sparsely with bean sprouts and spring onions and served with watered down Maggi Chilli sauce. But they were still the best!

Then, in my high school years, the school canteen there had both the onion fritters and the upmarket prawn fritters. The onion fritters were 20cents (the price inflated! because technically it meant that if you're in high school your allowance would increase from 50cents a day to $2 a day) and half the size; and they had the prawn fritters for 50cents a piece, because the prawn fritters were different in shape and came with a piece of prawn on the top. But they were both still served with the same watered down Maggi Chilli sauce.

When I whinged to my mum that the prices were up and they quality of the food was poor compared to the ones at my old primary school, she whipped up a batch of fritters with both the onions and prawns in them, and they were peeled banana prawns! not the stingy unpeeled shrimp they had at the canteen. They were the best fritters I had ever had! and I never looked back since. (they were served with Real Maggi Chilli sauce.. not the watered down version!)

I still miss mum's version. Occasionally when I go home for dinner mum would ask what I wanted for dinner.. sometimes.. when I crave it, I would ask for her prawn fritters or whatever else she makes that I missed eating..and if I was lucky.. I would get it the next fortnight when I go home for dinner :D

Unfortunately, I couldn't get hold of my mum's recipe (because like all mums, her recipes are stored in her memory bank and she needed time to sit and think it out) but I found an Amy Beh recipe from Kuali.com that I adapted to try and emulate my mum's feat. (Amy Beh is a famous Malaysian cook)

Prawn fritters

Ingredients:
20 raw prawns, peeled and chopped into small pieces
275g self-raising flour
60g rice flour
1 small egg, lightly beaten
A handful of bean sprouts, tailed
2 stalk spring onion, chopped
1 onion, finely sliced
350ml water
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp chicken stock granules
½ tsp sesame oil

Oil for deep frying
Your favourite chilli sauce.

Sift plain and rice flour together into a large mixing bowl and season with salt, pepper, sugar, chicken stock and sesame oil.
Add the beaten egg and water and mix into a batter.
Mix in the prawns, bean sprouts, spring onion, and onion then leave batter to stand for 30–40 minutes.
Heat oil in a saucepan
For each fritter, drop 1 chinese spoon of batter into the oil and fry until golden brown.
Drain the excess oil on paper towels.

Serve with your favourite chilli sauce/ sweet chilli sauce.

*I had mine with Lingham's chilli sauce.

The verdict: Umm, can I just say that they're not as good as my mums! LOL.

Hay Hay It's Donna Day is the brainchild of Barbara of Winos and foodies.

Bill says...

Bill says,

"Ricotta Hotcakes for Breakfast and;

"Seafood Stew for Dinner"

I had a big 'Bill weekend' the weekend before. Bill for Breakfast and Bill for Dinner. The only reason why we didn't have Bill for lunch was because we went out :)

I've had my two Bill Granger books for a while now and have barely used them because we usually eat out on the weekends and there's not really much point trying to cooking something from a cook book on a weekday when all you want to do after work is go "home, eat, shower and vege-out."

Although I suppose his recipes are so simple that you can do it on a weekday too.

Anyway, stayed home Friday, Saturday and Sunday and decided that I would make use of all these books that I have bought but never really used unless an occasion arises.

Breakfast on Saturday


Surprisingly, I woke up early. (Early by my standards is before 11am. hahah) So since I had intended to make breakfast I chose to make these Ricotta Hotcakes w/ Honey Comb butter that are in Bill's Sydney Food for me and Wholemeal pancakes from Simply Bill for Alv. With a twist, I didn't do the Honey Comb butter because I didn't have any ingredients for them (kinda forgot about it when I went shopping) and I substituted the wholemeal flour with plain flour because we didn't have any and Alv (being the fussy eater that he is) doesn't like wholemeal anyway.

Ricotta Hotcakes

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups ricotta
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs separated
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch of salt
50g of butter

1. Combine ricotta, milk and egg yolks in a bowl (mix well).
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt until just combined.
3. Beat eggs white in another bowl until light and fluffy.
4. Combine flour mix and ricotta mix.
5. Fold in egg white into batter in two separate lots.
6. Heat some butter in the pan and place 2 tbsp of batter onto the pan.
7. Cook until the top of the mix starts to bubble and flip over gently.

*Should make about 8 or 9 hotcakes depending on the size.
*I halved the recipe and got 4 hotcakes of about 2 1/2 tbsp per hotcake.

Serve w/ Honey Comb butter and banana slices or if you're lazy like me, just serve with maple syrup

Bill's version

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My lazy version. :)

The verdict: Yummy.. light, fluffy and delicious w/ the maple syrup. (Note to self: Buy some better quality maple syrup)

Monday Night Dinner

Monday night, the non-prawn-eating-housemate wasn't having dinner. Great opportunity to indulge in my favourite seafood.. PRAWNS yumm... Decided to make this seafood stew that we saw in Bill's Sydney Food.

Seafood Stew

Ingredients:
12 Prawns
24 Mussels
24 Scallops
24 Pipis
--
*I estimate that it's about 250g - 300g if you think it's weird asking the fish shop to count it for you. Pipi's aren't in season at the moment so I just doubled the scallops and prawns instead.
--
1 - 400g can of chopped Tomatoes
4 vine-rippened tomatoes chopped
1 tsp of orange zests
1/4 cup of white wine
2 - 3 cloves garlic crushed
2 small chillis chopped
1 medium onion diced
2 tbsp chopped Parsley
1 tbsp sliced Spring onions for garnish
*EVOO for frying onions
*S&P to taste

1. Clean seafood and set aside
2. Heat oil in a medium sized stock pot and fry onions, garlic and chilli until fragrant.
3. Add wine and let it boil before adding in tomatoes (can and fresh), parsley and orange zest.
4. Season to taste and simmer in a medium fire for 25-30mins
5. Add in mussells and stir to combine, cover and simmer for approximately 5mins.
6. Then add in the pipis, prawns and scallops and stir until their cooked.
7. Remove any mussells or pipis that are still closed.
8. Serve with spring onions and garlic toast.

^For garlic toast, simply blend 1/4 cup of EVOO w/ 1 or 2 cloves of garlic and slather onto bread slices. Sprinkle with salt before toasting/baking until crisp or to your liking.

The simmering pot of sauce.. mmm
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The garlic toast
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The end result

The verdict: It was nyeh... nice. Don't get me wrong, it tasted good, but it felt more like Tomato soup with Seafood than a Seafood Stew. But still nice and hearty for a winter soup. Too bad about the pipis.

My only gripe with this recipe is that if I was a real amateur-by-the-book-cook when it comes to cooking (ok, I'm still an amateur, but living away from home for last 3 1/2 years have thought me something) I would be wondering why list salt in the ingredients for the soup when you didn't specify what it was for? and what about pepper??

Ok, I'm being stupidly critical, but I just thought it was a little poorly written and I was just a tiny bit disappointed in the instructions because I know that if I told Alv to make it and just follow the instructions, he would forget about seasoning it.

A&A: I hope you don't criticise me for the lack of clear instructions. LOL. It's a bit hard since I'm doing this from the top of my head and it was two weeks ago that I cooked this. Then again, I doubt you guys will make this anyway. But Ali, just in case you're really hanging out for something 'Bill' you can always start with this. Heheh..

I actually made two other things: one from Simply Bill and one from Bill's Sydney Food but unfortunately they were so "normal" in the scale of 'wowness' I didn't bother taking any photos and am not even going to bother mentioning it now that I think about it.

- Ji endo -

QED Idea No. 2 - Garlic Prawns w/ Linguine

Hey Ali & Ange, too bad Cath is a C, or you guys can be AAA.

Here's another QED Idea.

I just had it for dinner last night.. Yumm

Sounds a bit mean, but I always look forward to when Mish can't have/is not having dinner. Why is that you say? I say: It's because she doesn't eat PRAWNS! When we first moved in and I found out that she doesn't like prawns I was like... WHAT??!! How can you not eat prawns!? They're like so yummmm!!! To which she replied, "hate peeling them and don't like the taste/texture?" The only thing from the 'prawn family' she'd eat is lobster. (Go figure). So I have since been deprived of prawns.. I only get to eat them on special occasions like:

• When we go out for dinner
• When I go back to Mum's for dinner
  
• When I'm not cooking for Mish, like when we had "Dinner at Flim's"
• On designated, 'Mish not eating dinner' nights.
  

Finally, last night was 'Mish not eating dinner' night. (hasn't happened for a while, Mish you need to go out for dinner more often hahahah) So we had Garlic Prawns pasta for dinner. Oishii!!

Ali: I adapted this from one of your favourite cook book: Bill Granger's Bill's Food - Garlic Prawns.

Can't remember exact amounts, but you'll need the following (obviously)

Bill's Original Recipe:

• Prawns - approx 500g (coz I like loads of prawns in my pasta and so does Alv)
  
• Parsley - approx 1/4 cup, chopped (more if you like)
  
• Garlic - I used 3, Bill's recipe uses 5 (I tried it with 5 once, I had gastro for 3 days)
• Olive Oil - I use 1/2 cup, Bill's recipe uses 1 cup (and I think Bill used EVOO)
• Chilli - 1 (more if you think Ange can take it hahah)

My Extras:

• Onion - 1, chopped
  
• Chilli Oil - to taste (I used the Japanese one, taste better)
  
• Pasta - as much as you want to eat. (I used Linguine here, but I prefer Angel Hair because it's less 'filling' and it cooks faster. Alv doesn't like Angel Hair that much, he said it's not filling enough *rolled eyes*)
  

Do it Like So:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.
2. Clean the prawns and place them in an oven proof dish.
3. Boil your water for pasta -- duhhhhh
   
4. Chop up Chilli, Garlic, Onion and Parsley
5. Heat up the oil til it's hot hot hot
6. Add Chilli and half the amount of chopped Garlic into the pan.
7. Add the Chilli oil and just fry the Garlic til it's fragrant.
8. Remove from stove and pour over the prawns in the oven proof dish.
9. Spread the rest of the Garlic and Parsley on top of the Prawns.
10. Season to taste with S&P
    
11. Wrap foil onto the dish and place it in the oven for about 15-20mins.
12. While the Prawn cooks in the oven you cook your pasta.
13. When the Prawns are done and Pasta's done mix both together and wa lah.. Garlic Prawn pasta.

Big Tip: I suggest scooping the prawns on to the pasta and then drizzle with the pasta with as much of the oil from cooking the prawns as you wish. Otherwise, if you mix everything together the dish might get a bit too oily.

Ps. No photo of satisfied customer this time. He was too busy watching Friends (yes, THAT Friends) and setting up his microphone for warcraft.