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Showing posts with label seafood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seafood. Show all posts

Friday, May 7, 2010

Subha Aluth Avuruddhak Wewa

Did you make any new year's resolutions this year? Planned to reduce your macaron intake? Wean yourself off Gossip Girl? Combat the Tight Pants Fairy's evil work? And did your good plans disappear as quickly as that box of macarons and the sight of your toes?

Well fear not, because the new year has only just begun! The Sri Lankan New Year begins on either 13th or 14th of April each year, with the exact time and date dependent on the time when the sun moves from Meena (Pisces) into Mesha (Aries). The recent new year began on the 14th of April (at 6:58am to be precise), and I was lucky enough to join in the Sri Lankan Cultural Society of Western Australia new year celebrations on Sunday the 18th of April.


It was held at Centenary Park in Wilson on a beautiful sunny Autumn day. I was enjoying the warmth of the sun in a singlet (and shorts, I might add) which turned out to be a clever idea as friends were able to find our group by spotting my blindingly white skin amongst the more melanin blessed crowd.

I was barely there for two seconds before food was being thrust upon me. I got the feeling I was going to enjoy celebrating the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year.


We decided to load up on foods and find some grass to relax on so there would be no injuries should we go into simultaneous food comas. The foods on sale were written up on a whiteboard, and I was glad to have my own personal translator, my friend Lil deVious, to explain the dishes. Fish Roti and Buriyani were fairly obvious to someone who is familiar with Indian food, but I was a little confused by the Cutlets, Chinese Rolls and Wadai under the Shorties part of the menu (though not quite as confused as I was by the chips, fish & chips and hot dogs on offer).

While we were lining up, I was a little alarmed by the apparent popularity of the chips and hot dogs, but I guess if you make your own yellow rice and curries at home every day, it might be nice to treat yourself with a bucket of chips on a Sunday. 

Chinese Roll (2 for $3.50) and Cutlet (3 for $2.50) - thanks to lovely hand model Lil deVious for giving some added authenticity to my photos

The Chinese Roll and Cutlet are somewhat similar, both containing a spicy fishy filling which tasted like a spicy, aromatic version of my Mum's tuna patties. I love my Mum's tuna patties and I loved these. The Cutlets are round crumb-coated balls of the fish mixture, while the Chinese Rolls are like a spring roll that has been crumbed before frying.

Wadai (3 for $2.50)

The next tasty fried shorties were wadai, spicy fried lentil patties. The outer layer was perfectly crispy and I loved the amount of heat contained within each naughty morsel. These would be perfect with a cold beer.

Rice and curry ($7.50); yellow rice ($8)

The "rice and curry" came with "fish, potato, beans, dhal", while the yellow rice came with "chicken, potato, eggplant", and both had a dollop of spicy spicy chilli. Both were aromatic, well spiced, filling meals. I would have liked a bit more of a kick to it, but was able to achieve this easily by adding the chilli to my forkfuls. I can understand that they couldn't exactly have every component knocking your socks off with the heat, as they were cooking for a large crowd and even with a mostly Sri Lankan crowd you sadly cannot assume everyone is a chilli fiend. 

Hot chips ($3)

One of the other non-Sri Lankans in our group got these chips. He's a Kiwi. I like to think he got them purely to entertain us with his pronunciation of "chips". They looked nice and crunchy but I was not willing to spare a single chip worth of stomach space.

The Hopper Man, working his magic

This was my first Sri Lankan hopper experience and it will not be my last. Oh no, as the magical Hopper Man is my witness, I will never go hopper hungry again! Hoppers are basically thin pancakes made in quite concave pans. There are many varieties of hoppers, but on this day we had a stack of plain hoppers finished off with an egg hopper on top. The egg was perfectly cooked such that there was no "snot" on the white (thanks Dad for giving me such a classy vocabulary) but the yolk was gooey and begging to be dipped into with pieces of hopper. The accompanying chicken drumstick was tender and spicy and the coconut sambol was heaven in a hopper scoop.

A plate of hopper joy

Goopy goopy googy egg

In addition to the good eating, there were a number of games being played throughout the day. I'm not sure what they are called in Sinhalese or Tamil, but I would call them hitting a claypot piñata, pillow fighting, and of course a good old game of cricket.

Watching a talented piñata smasher bust open the clay pot was amazing. All of the children that had been impatiently waiting around the sidelines rushed in faster than I could capture with my camera, eagerly grabbing at the freed treats while the triumphant stick-wielder pumped his fists in the air. I felt a little sorry for him - to pause for your success to be captured on film, or to make sure some of those liberated lollies make it into your pockets? A tough choice.


The pillow fighting went on for hours, with many heats leading up to the finals. Watching the men's finals was something else, these guys really meant business. I think they had been training in their backyards. The ultimately triumphant pillowman had a winning technique of absorbing all the force of his opponent's whacks in the side of his head before making his move with one or two hits to throw his opponent off balance and send him tumbling off the log.


I didn't watch much of the cricket, but I did manage to capture a little mini Muttiah Muralitharan deliver a killer doosra all of about 2 metres, forcing the batsman to run forward more than half the length of the pitch to reach the ball.


I didn't want the celebrations to end, and luckily they continued the following night when Lil deVious invited me around to her place for dinner. The place smelled so good when I arrived I could have just walked around chomping the air and almost have been satisfied. Almost. Fortunately for my bundy (stomach) we got to eat the source of the smells, and the kiribath (milk rice), chicken curry and seeni sambol were right on the rupee. Bohoma sthuthi, Lil deVious, your cooking is truly rasai. I'm worried my bundy is going it pack its bags and migrate to Sri Lanka without me.  

Seeni sambol, chicken curry and kiribath (milk rice)

Rasai dins, round 1

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Happy Easter!

Happy belated Easter! Anyone else been visited by the Tight Pants Fairy as well as the Easter Bunny?

I have to admit I dropped the ball (egg?) with making Easter treats this year. Across the globe food bloggers have been..

There has also been a spate of Passover baking to add a bit of oy vey to my feelings of baking inadequacy.

I'd like to say I was too busy knitting socks for war orphans to bake delicious Easter treats, but the sad truth is that I was too busy eating. Sure, I also spent the Easter break catching up with my family and getting in a couple of good tennis matches with my sister, but the rest of the time was spent either eating or hurriedly digesting to allow for more eating.
 

The eating started off in fine style on Good Friday, with my family's traditional Good Friday seafood extravaganza gorgefest. Extended family members brought along a selection of salads and some fresh bread, while Mum and Dad put on an impressive spread of blinis, smoked fish, cooked cray tails and prawns, baked fish with lemon butter, fried whiting, pickled occy and some rosemary skewers of scallops and chorizo. The chorizo was a new addition to the Good Friday eating, and we felt quite naughty about it, though I'm sure God was too busy hanging out at all the church ceremonies to notice.

Despite my lack of Easter baking, I did at least contribute one dish to this meal - Salmon and Scallop Ceviche which I also made last Easter. There is such a delicious freshness to this dish, and it is worth any dribbles of juice down your arms as you bite into the fishy lettuce parcels.


Salmon and Scallop Ceviche
by Valli Little in the delicious June 2004 issue

Serves 6

Ingredients
400g salmon fillet, pin-boned
300g scallops, roe removed
1 cup (250ml) fresh lime juice
4 vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped (I used 10 baby romas)
3 long green chillies, seeds removed, finely chopped
6 spring onions, finely chopped
1/3 cup chopped coriander leaves, plus extra to garnish
1/2 telegraph cucumber, peeled, chopped (I used 1 Lebanese cucumber, unpeeled)
1 avocado, flesh chopped
1/4 cup (60 mL) olive oil (I used around 40 mL)
Baby cos lettuce leaves (1-2 per person, depending on size), to serve

Method
1. Cut seafood into small cubes, place in a bowl and pour the lime juice over top. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours.
2. Drain off juice, add tomato, chilli, spring onion, coriander, cucumber, avocado and oil, and season with sea salt and pepper.
3. To serve, place the lettuce leaves on plates and pile the ceviche on top. Garnish with extra coriander leaves and serve immediately, with extra lime wedges, if desired.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Something's cooking in the kitsch'n


When asked by the West Australian in July last year about the new small bar he was planning to open in Leederville, Iain Lawless said it was going to be a bit more bohemian and interesting than what was currently on offer to Perth eaters and drinkers, saying
"Unfortunately, most of the bars and restaurants here look as though Jamie Durie did the fit-out. You look at it and go, 'Oh that's nice - for me house!' People can do what they like but for me I don't want that, I want people to either love it or hate it, not just think it's all right."

Friday, February 26, 2010

Are we Amusé?

I'm a lucky girl. My eatathon of a birthday last week started off with a fantastic breakfast with friends at Greenhouse, morning tea was a Greenhouse donut and Lindt Chilli Chocolate, lunch was another fantastic meal at West End Deli in West Perth, the afternoon offered me a massage and coconut bubble tea, and then I was whisked off to a mystery location for dinner. I was told to dress nicely and was assured I didn't need to bring my hard hat or steel caps, so I was looking forward to a civilised evening.

 West End Deli lunch: "smoked salmon, eggplant and date chutney, coriander, brioche, poached egg" ($21) and "squid, cucumber, tomato, butter beans, oregano vinaigrette" ($19) 

(Before I continue, I have to get something off my chest... the menu at West End Deli actually said "vinaigarette", and not "vinaigrette"... not quite as bad as a misplaced apostrophe, but still irritating, particularly as it makes me think of Shane Delia pronouncing it "vinegarette" on Ready Steady Cook and Peter Everett blithely parroting him. Why don't menu writers use spell checkers? Why do I watch Ready Steady Cook?)


Thursday, December 31, 2009

Ho ho ho and a bottle of champers

I kept putting off this post as I've been feeling a bit lazy of late, and been somewhat busy eating, catching up with family and friends, getting heatstroke playing tennis, driving, braving the city for some bargain hunting and constructing an anti-sunlight device for my bedroom consisting of sheets sewn together in a umm.. rustic manner. As you might possibly be aware, today is New Year's Eve, so I thought I should get this written up before the new year is upon me and I'm nursing a hangover and hair of the dog on top of being busy and lazy.

I hadn't spent Christmas with my family for a few years, as Christmas 2007 was spent with my (now ex) boyfriend's family, and Christmas 2008 was spent driving between Montreal and New York city (we did manage to pull over on the side of the road for some delicious goat cheese and turkey sandwiches for lunch), so it was really nice to spend it with them and get some stocking action after two years of missing out. This was also our first Christmas with a baby in our immediate family, and my nephew's involvement seems to validate our continued stocking tradition. Do other people still do stockings? Will I ever outgrow it?

After spending Christmas eve building a gingerbread house and catching up with family, it was soon time for the traditional Christmas Eve seafood gorging extravaganza. This year did not disappoint, with some fine dishes on offer - South Australian oysters with Cointreau, coriander and sweet chilli, smoked salmon, smoked albacore, mango & spinach salad, prawns, crays (ok, technically they're Western Rock Lobsters but we're on a nickname basis), herb crumbed fish and scallop & chorizo rosemary skewers.

Christmas Eve deliciousness, with Dad's hand making the large prawns and cray slices looking like teeny tiny little things

My first plate.. seconds and thirds were enjoyed soon after

Friday, November 13, 2009

Ginnie Joan's Swanky Speakeasy

It was a hot day. It's always hot in Gero, and today it was blowing more hot air than the mayor on election day. I was sitting at my desk with a pitcher of melted ice, sweating like a hungry fat guy at a hot dog stand where there are only two weenies left.. and he’s third in line. The door squeaked on its hinges and I looked up to see her walking in, the kind of broad that could get a guy into five types of trouble.

"Ginnie Joan's another year old this year, but this time it ain't no ordinary birthday," she said, "We gots to celebrate this one with a bang, and I hear you're the girl to help us do it."

"So what if I am, doll face. I ain't got the time, and you ain't got the dough," I replied, wiping the sweat off my brow and looking around for fall to appear.It was hotter than a $3 radio at an all-night pawnshop but this dame was cool as ice. She reached into her bag and tossed two parcels across the desk before moving to the door, arching her back against the frame "There's plenty more where that came from. You've got two days to get back to me, and keep your trap shut," she said before slinking out.

I picked up the parcels, looking inside and groaning like a cheap plastic chair at an all-you-can-eat buffet. This broad had my number all right - wholemeal pizza dough and freshly made too. I poured the pitcher over my head before picking up the phone and admitting surrender.

When my sister first approached me with her idea of throwing a 1920s/30s themed party for our Mum's milestone birthday this year, I knew it was going to be a night to remember. If you want a cool party organised, just ask my sister (only, you might not want to ask her right now or she might punch your nose flatter than a pancake driving off a cliff). Contrary to the above gumshoe, I eagerly jumped on board and soon we were watching old movies for ideas (watching Kevin Costner in fast forward doesn't make him any less annoying), making many a list and madly emailing each other even more than usual.

Keep your greasy mitts off my Ginnie Joan dollars!

Before too long, invites were sent out to the lucky chosen ones, giving each guest a moniker to use for the evening, and some Ginnie Joan dollars to use in case they need to bribe their way in past The Enforcer (my brother-in-law).

The Enforcer's shift at the speakeasy began early, shifting and moving the usual furniture out of the way to make room for the hired tables and chairs, the "band" and the piano. The band were an unusually quiet lot, but they made up for it by looking the part, framed by red curtains and gold chandeliers. The band and curtains were made by the speakeasy's artist-in-residence, my sister, who also happens to moonlight as a fine little moonshine brewer.

Just some of Ginnie Joan's posters and magazine covers

A couple of pinboards covered in photos of Ginnie Joan throughout the years, and a few photoshop-dodgy-ed up posters later, and we had the swankiest speakeasy this side of Chicago.

The band for the evening, and some Ginnie Joan moonshine

The food preparation began weeks ago, with my sister and I making all the freezable items in advance and storing them safely away until the big day. My sister put in some mammoth baking days for this, and soon we had a chest freezer filled with tasty treats. Cooking the fresh food involved two pretty solid days of cooking before the party, and by Sunday we were knackered but it was totally worth it.

The party was fantastic, with around 60 guests in attendance. I was so impressed by the effort that everyone went to with their costumes! I would love to put up some photos of us all but I'm not so sure everyone would be cool with me sticking their mugs up here so you'll just have to imagine how awesome us ladies looked with our drop-waists and tassels and fishnets and feathers and the men in their dapper suits! I had bought myself a nice feather boa to complete my outfit, but ended up leaving it out in fear of a guest choking on any stray feathers (the mob doc was outta town that weekend).

The night's savoury menu at this lavish juice joint consisted of:
  • Selection of cold platters and dips (which I largely forgot to photograph!!)
  • Party eggs (also totally forgot to photograph!)
  • Smoked salmon and caviar blinis (kinda forgot to photograph)
  • Assorted sushi rolls
  • Salt & pepper squid
  • Lamb koftas with yoghurt dipping sauce
  • Mini quiches - ham, cheese & chives and sundried tomato & feta
  • Spicy chicken sausage rolls
  • Spanakopita triangles (made with puff instead of filo... don't tell George!)
  • Spicy pulled pork buns
  • Butter chicken pastries
  • Mini beef & Guinness pies
No recipes in this post I'm afraid, but perhaps I'll write some up in the near future.

Pastries being warmed, ready to go out on platters to the hungry masses

My only evidence of Party Eggs, and a Caviar Blini

Assorted sushi rolls

Salt & pepper squid, butter chicken pastries, my only evidence of the platters, spicy chicken rolls and the sundried tomato & feta quiches

Spicy chicken rolls, sundried tomato & feta quiches, lamb koftas, beef & Guinness pies and spanakopita triangles

The spicy pulled pork process - rubbed with spices, after being very slowly cooked, pulling it all apart to be put back in slow cooker with homemade bbq sauce, then making the buns!

Spicy chicken rolls, ham cheese & chives quiches, spicy pulled pork buns

We were serving for a good solid couple of hours, before people started admitting defeat and we thought we'd let them rest their bellies in readiness for dessert. The rest period included some entertainment in the form of The Godfather theme being belted out on the piano, and a skit including some of the town's hottest young flappers showing off their dance moves. While all this was going on, my sister and I busily finished off the final touches to the birthday cake we'd been working on for a couple of days by this stage, and arranging the other desserts (provided kindly by some of Mum's sisters) on trays.

In addition to that slice of beetroot chocolate cake that I bought at the Subi Farmers market last week and stored safely away in the freezer for our coeliac guest, the other desserts were:
  • Date slice (no photographic evidence at all! Trust me it was lovely!) (thanks Aunty R!)
  • Banoffee pies, with a twist (thanks Aunty S!)
  • Chocolate and raspberry tarts (thanks Aunty T!)
A chocolate tart, and some banoffee pies (mmm gotta love a twist that involves Cherry Ripe)

Now, the birthday cake/s was a labour of love. My sister came up with the overall design, and then got to work making the key component - an incredible fruit cake (man it's a tasty cake... I was lucky enough to score a big chunk to bring back to Perth with me, and every day is a struggle to stop myself from eating the whole thing.) I meanwhile put myself to good use by sourcing all the icing paraphernalia from various cake decorating stores. Of course, there happened to be a statewide shortage in the ready-to-roll icing we wanted, but I just hit up Jimmy the shoeshine boy for the info I needed. For the right price, Jimmy could tell you were to find a needle in a haystack, and where it had been 'til now, and he sure as hell knew where in town had some o' that fondant. (The Yellow Pages and many phone calls may have also possibly yielded the same information).

The cake process began on Friday with the baking of around 70 cupcakes - chocolate in black paper, and vanilla in white paper. We then got onto decorating the fruit cake. Neither my sister nor I had ever used fondant before, so we were incredibly apprehensive and had visions of it cracking horribly as we tried to roll it on and having to cover up our mistakes with lashings of ganache or icing sugar or just doing the Charleston in front of it to distract people. After watching a few youtube videos to get the process clear in our minds, we got started and it ended up being remarkably straightforward! Luckily the cake was lovely and goopy with all the booze in it, so it was quite easy to get the surface nice and level by plugging any little holes with pieces of extra cake before we did the rolling, and before long we had a mighty fine looking fondantified cake.

Making and decorating the central fruit cake

The piano decoration on top of the white fondant layer involved a bit more work, and I was able to put my engineering skills to good use by drawing up a template to cut the black icing to. Once the black squiggle and black keys were in the right position, we made the lines between the white keys with pieces of licorice before adding some black musical notes, placing some ribbon around the bottom and high-fiving each other a few times.

The high-fives may have been a little premature, as we then spent the rest of the night decorating the cupcakes with alternating black or white fondant, and musical notes. We also decorated some cupcakes to spell out "HAPPY BIRTHDAY", and saved four in each colour to place some gold candles into.


So, while others were shimmying up a storm outside, my sister and I arranged the cake and cupcakes on the previously prepared cakeboard (made and painted by The Enforcer, I believe, and finished off with the musical score by my sister). It was while doing this that I thought that perhaps we should check if the board actually fit through the door. Mild panic ensued until The Enforcer used his rifle as a ruler and confirmed that it would indeed fit safely through the door. Candles were then lit and the cake made its way out to the lady of honour!


Following much gorging of cake and cupcakes and pies and tarts and slice, there was only one duty left of the evening... selling the post-dinner cigars and cigarettes...

Cigars? Cigarettes? Humectant 420?

Big cheers for my sister for organising one hell of a party, and very big thanks to all who attended and helped that classy broad Ginnie Joan celebrate her birthday in style! Happy birthday Mum!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Delving even further back...

Oh yeah, I also used to live in Sweden. I was on exchange there for a semester during my undergraduate degree, and lived in a 'Flogsta corridor' with 11 other students. I'll spare you the tales of cleaning rosters, people waking me consistently in the wee hours by rocking out to Tina Turner and Rod Stewart, and making the most of our rooftop sauna. Mine was not a typical Flogsta corridor, that usually only has a couple of foreign students, as we had three Italians (one who lived in the next corridor over but would visit a lot), one German, one Greek Cypriot, myself and 7 Swedes. We often ate together, and started this off by having a typical kräftskiva or Crayfish Party.

Svenska kräftor and some little prawns too

Tomas' super impressive balloon kräftor

A recurring event was the corridor pizza night, where we would all chip in a few kroner, someone would head down to the nearby ICA for supplies, and we would get covered in flour and dine on delicious homemade pizzas for dinner.

One of many, many corridor pizzas

One night we all felt like doing something, and many phonecalls were made to see what was going on in town and whether it was worth walking in to go to one of the student bars for some booze and dancing. Half of us were psyched up to go out, and half weren't, and in the end we all just decided to stay home and make waffles instead. As you do. There were a few of us, so we thought we'd better triple the usual waffle mix quantities. We uhh, might've overdone it a little.

Mixing up way too much waffle batter

The remnants, after many a waffle was consumed with cream, ice cream and jam. And possibly champagne.

The leftover mix after everyone was completely stuffed. We were eating waffles for days.

One of our Corridor Dinners had a theme - Homeland Food. Oh it was a delicious theme. I was torn about what to make, and although I toyed with making meat pies, vanilla sliceeventually decided on making sushi as I figured I was representing the entire Asian/Oceanic region.

Organising the deliciousness

Everyone getting stuck into Round One of the Homeland Dinner


Someone's first round of homeland chow

What a sight! This is a smörgåstårta which is essentially a Swedish sandwich cake, made with bread and various fillings and layers.

We also held a Corridor Christmas dinner so that we could all celebrate together before we all headed off to spend Christmas elsewhere (the UK for me). This dinner involved the imbibing of much glögg, which I miss in Australia. There's a lot to be said for mulled wine in cold weather, especially when it is served with raisins and almonds. In glasses with little red hearts on them.

Serving delicious warming glögg to all and sundry

Christmas dinner, corridor style, complete with red wine and Julmust

Christmas dessert - my choc berry meringue, lussebulle and tiramisu

More lussebulle....mmmmmmmm I can smell the saffron from here (please ignore the dirty sink)

Christmas markets in Sweden are worth braving any dreary weather to check out. Chances are you might have some angels, sockervadd or hot hot nuts to see you through the cold. Hot hot nuts.

Making some cash before hitting the club?

Father Christmas keeping himself busy before the big day, selling sockervadd (fairy floss/cotton candy)

Hot nuts! Hot nuts! Get your hot nuts here!

During my semester in Sweden I was lucky enough to be invited to a soiree at the Australian Ambassador's residence in Stockholm. We felt right at home, with a selection of (Swedish) beers, Vegemite sandwiches, sausage rolls, party pies, ANZAC biccies and lamingtons. I was surprised to learn that one of his daughters is a barmaid at one of the Australiana bars in the city, which I never got around to visiting. No great loss, I'm sure.

Classy Aussie fare at the Australian Ambassador's residence in Stockholm

While living in Sweden I had the opportunity to head over to St Petersburg for a few days on an organised tour with other students. I didn't take many food photos there, probably because I didn't really want to remember the food. I did however take a photo of the boot of the car of a man who pulled up when our bus stopped for petrol, kindly offering to sell us any manner of drinks to sustain us for the remainder of the bus trip to our hotel.

A typical Russian boot?

One of our nights there was spent on a river cruise down the Neva River, including singing and dancing and drinking and... not much eating. Sadly the only food we were given to line our stomachs against the vast amounts of champanski and vodka was a little plate of white bread and caviar, and a little bowl of fruit.

Dinner on a river cruise down the Neva River, St Petersburg

I also spent a few weeks in Italy with my newfound Italian friends on my way home to Australia, and was absolutely spoilt by their mothers' cooking. Every meal was a feast, but of course you'll just have to take my word for it. I did however manage to take a few window shopping photos. Anyone for pasta fresca?


No? Hmmm, well how about a chocolate spanner, or mobile phone?


I can't for the life of me remember where the next two photos were taken - somewhere on the Italian coast during a day of much driving and sightseeing. I do however remember how tasty the farinata was.

Hard at work making farinata

Slicing up the farinata ready to be taken to a table of hungry girls

Now I think I really have exhausted the depths of my foodie photos, and really that's probably for the best as I don't want this to turn into one of those slide show nights where everyone is looking at their watches and thinking of ways to make good their escape.

Hej då, до свидания and arrivederci!

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About Me

My love of cooking is surpassed only by my love of eating, though I never quite recovered from the beef I was served at college. I'll try almost anything once, but it takes a very special piece of offal or beef to get me to try it again.

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