Posts by tammi

Prince Restaurant, Parramatta

Review June 12, 2013 3 Comments

I’ve heard many recommendations to try the Yum Cha at Prince Restaurant in Parramatta, and one Sunday, I decided to walk down there to get my Yum Cha fix.

It was extremely busy, and the hustle and bustle of ordering families and trolley ladies really got me excited for a great meal!!

A large hotplate of various delights greets you near the entrance, and I really love the look of the food being fried/cooked in front of you. It gives me a great feeling of immediacy of the hot steaming food.

The first thing that I absolutely have to order is the selection of rice noodle (Cheong fun) dishes. As previously mentioned, I have a certain thing for the steamed silky mouthfuls of prawn stuffed rice noodles. What I’ve recently discovered, though, is that I absolutely adore the fried version too! The fried version here came with a sesame/sweet dipping sauce, and each springy mouthful was an absolute delight.

I also ordered from their selection of dumplings.

The dumplings were all okay, but nothing absolutely fantastic. But then again, I have been spoiled for choice. The fried dumplings that they had here were okay, but I much prefer the ones my mother makes.

I know, spoiled right? 😉

Finally, no Yum Cha experience is complete without the order of Mango Pancakes!

Mango flavoured pancakes are wrapped around a soft filling of sweet, ripe mangoes and smooth creamy ice cream. Yum.

Considering that it’s a walking distance from home, it was an experience I would definitely repeat. The service, while sometimes slightly inattentive due to the business of the joint, was largely not bad! The food must also have been better than I remember, since most of the stuff I’ve eaten I seem to have forgotten to photograph! Goes to show how much a hungry tummy and make me slightly irresponsible in the food blogging department. =)

We ate at:
Prince Restaurant
(02) 9891 5777
100 Church Street
Parramatta NSW 2150

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What I ate: Squid ink pasta and crabmeat aglio e olio

what i ate June 10, 2013 5 Comments

Sometimes, you just want a light lunch. Sometimes it’s nice to pretend that it’s still spring and immerse yourself in punchy fresh flavours that make you forget that you had to drag yourself out of the warm cocoon that is your bed to face the day.

As much as I love long stews and slow cooking during the cold dreary days of winter, sometimes I feel like it doesn’t even feel like winter yet. Not that I’m complaining, but sometimes I feel a little weirded out when I see the sun out, and can walk to the shops in my t-shirt and shorts. But the upside is that the sun just calls for light meals and a cold glass of crisp white wine.

And that’s where this recipe came in. I had some squid ink pasta that had to get used, and my pantry is always stocked with chilli and garlic. In this case, I used tinned alaskan crab meat, but crab meat is available in tubs at the supermarket, or feel free to use bacon or pancetta if you’d like. I know it’s not an Aglio e olio in the strictest sense, but it’s time to clear out my cupboards and it’s extremely tasty and so simple.

Here’s what I used:

Squid ink pasta
Garlic (1 clove per entree size portion, and I love my garlic.)
Bird’s eye chilli (1 chilli per clove of garlic, but feel free to use more)
Extra virgin olive oil (a nice fruity one)
Fish stock
1 tin alaskan crab meat
Coriander
Yuzu juice

I par boiled the pasta first in salted boiling water, then finished it in a little bit of fish stock.

TENTACLES OF THE SEA!!!!

I find that finishing the last 2 minutes or so in fish stock gives it just a little bit more flavour, but you can just finish boiling the pasta in salted boiling water. Just remember that because you’re cooking it a bit further with the garlic and chilli, haven the pasta slightly underdone, so that by the time the garlic is cooked, your pasta is perfectly al dente.

While the pasta is boiling, I smashed the garlic and chilli through a mortar and pestle with some cracked black pepper and salt.

I moved the pasta from the pot into my sauté pan with a splash of fish stock, and simmered it till the stock is completely absorbed. Half a cup was all I had to use for 2 entree sized portions, but add a splash more if it isn’t enough. Then simply add the garlic paste and olive oil to the pasta, gently sauté it till the garlic loses the acrid burn, then stir through the crab meat, yuzu juice and a smidgen more oil. Scatter with some coriander to finish,

Curiously addictive and easy, this makes for a light lunch, or a simple weeknight dinner. Don’t like crab? Well it works with all sorts of meats, herbs (use parsley if you don’t like coriander), and because it’s so basic, it’s open to your wildest imaginations.

Marmalade Pantry, Singapore

Review Singapore Travel June 5, 2013 1 Comment

I’ve long had a love affair with crustaceans of all types. And carbs, I love carbs too. So when they come together in something called Crabmeat Linguini, I am just about as close to heaven as I can get.

When I first heard about The Marmalade Pantry, I didn’t peg it for much of a savoury place. After all, the name to me conjures up image of scones and tea on a lazy afternoon in Autumn.

Well, I’m happy to admit that I was wrong. The Crabmeat Linguini is a must-order every time that I’m there, and the relatively large serving – my friend Yina and I shared a plate – means that you get to try other things on the menu as well. Chunks of mud crab are folded through a rich, tomato based sauce that is flecked with chilli and topped with a scattering of grated parmesan. It’s incredibly moreish, and you could very easily find yourself stuffed to the brim and on the brink of a food coma.

We also tried the Sticky Date Pudding. Warm, moist pudding, drizzled with caramel and paired with classic vanilla ice cream serving as a cold foil. It was definitely rich enough that I wouldn’t have finished a whole serve by myself, but it was fantastic to share.

The Marmalade Pantry is a great place to meet up at, and the service, while not drop dead fantastic, has always been consistently good. The savouries seem to have made more of an impact for me, but the sweets have always been decent enough. Worth dropping by for lunch if you’re spending a day shopping at Ion.

We ate at:

The Marmalade Pantry
Unit 03-22 ION Orchard
2 Orchard Turn Singapore 238801
T: +65 6734 2700
F: +65 6734 2279
enquiry.city@themarmaladepantry.com.sg

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What I ate: Miso glazed eggplant

what i ate June 3, 2013 3 Comments

Eggplants seem to be everywhere lately, and I love how a simple glaze can transform the humble eggplant into Nasu Dengaku. The miso glaze is dead easy.
Just combine:

1 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp shiro miso (white miso)
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1-2 tbsp water, to thin it out

I grilled my eggplants in the oven, set to 200C, but you can also do it on the stove. I first sliced my eggplant into thick pieces and lightly salted them. When beads of moisture appeared, I patted dry with a paper towel, then sprayed them with oil and popped them under the grill. When they’re a light brown, I just brushed them with the glaze and put them back under to finish off.

So simple, and tasty. I have it on rice as a light lunch, but you can definitely also have it as part of a larger meal.

What’s your favourite eggplant recipe?

Heston’s Mac and Cheese

Recipe June 1, 2013 2 Comments

Heston Blumenthal is one of my idols. His approach to learning is one of a man dying of thirst. Constantly evolving, constantly improving…and he seems to have an ever expanding capacity for processing and storing information.

Which is why I love trying out his home recipes – he always incorporates techniques that I can use on other dishes, and ideas that I can apply to my other experiments in the kitchen.

Since Heston’s Mac and Cheese incorporates English cheeses, I’ve used a mixture of cheeses that are more available in Australia. It still makes a fabulous mac and cheese, but would definitely differ slightly from the original version.

Heston’s Mac and Cheese

200g Macaroni
15ml truffle oil
300ml dry white wine
300ml chicken stock
80g grated hard cheese ( I used a mix of vintage and gruyere)
10g corn flour
80g cream cheese
15g goat’s cheese, diced
Extra gruyere (and mozzarella, cause I had some), for gratinating.

If you’ve got some, infuse the chicken stock with some parmesan rind, and keep it warm.

Mix the grated cheese with cornflour, this will give the sauce a thick, silky texture.

Cook the macaroni in 200ml salted water till all the water is absorbed, and mix in the truffle oil. Alternatively, you can boil the macaroni in salted water till just under al dente, drain and mix in the truffle oil then.

Reduce the white wine to 30ml (a tablespoon and a half), add warm chicken stock to the pan, and whisk in the grated cheese till smooth.

Mix in the cream cheese and warm pasta. Season.

Place half into a suitable baking dish, and sprinkle with goats cheese and then the rest of the pasta and cheese sauce. Finish with some grated gruyere (and mozzarella). Place under a hot grill (I heated mine to about 180C) until melted and brown.

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Creamy, comforting yet luxurious and decadent, this is an adult’s version of mac and cheese, that is fantastic for dinner on a cold winter night. For the flavour and texture, it was well worth the effort, and I would love to try the full original recipe with all the English cheeses.

What’s your favourite recipe for Mac and cheese?

Ritzy Gritz Stone Grill, Kiama

Review May 28, 2013 1 Comment

Stone grill, coal grill…I think we can pretty much agree that meat + intense heat = AWESOME POWER OF DELICIOUSNESS! It’s a formula that has worked since caveman days, and it’s not about to stop working now.

Which is probably why Ritzy Gritz in Kiama is so popular! Sitting on Collins Street in Kiama, it is by far the busiest restaurant on that street on any given night. There was a good hour and a half wait on a Sunday evening for a table, because I didn’t think I needed to make a reservation. Even when we were seated at about 8.45, the restaurant was still packed to the brim with families and tourists alike.

To start with, we ordered Chorizo Tortilla Melt, $10. It’s quite a simple dish, really – a round of flat bread wedges is covered with oozy cheese, chorizo, seasoned tomato salsa, sour cream and then grilled to tasty perfection. It was a great start to the evening, and was just enough to whet our appetite.

And you can’t go to a stone grill without ordering a stone grill! Our Reef and Beef Stone Grill, $32 seemed like the best of both worlds because I could not in good conscience order both the meat grill AND the seafood grill. Although I totally would. Yes, I would.

IS THAT A CHALLENGE? I ACCEPT!

Sorry, I’ve been watching too much New Girl. Gotta love Schmitty.

Anyway.

Your meat is placed on a screaming hot piece of stone, and salt dusted over the top. The stone retains its heat amazingly well, and gives the steak a fantastic sear. You do have to season the meat further upon flipping it – meaning that you need to have some level of cooking know-how – and you need to also know how far you like your steak done, because you’re in charge of the cooking process. It’s quite smart, really – the restaurant doesn’t need to take responsibility for how well the dish is cooked because you’re doing the cooking, and it’s a lovely novelty and fantastic flavour because, as I mentioned before:

Meat + Intense Heat = AWESOME POWER OF DELICIOUSNESS.

It was a little on the pricey side for what we ate, but the food is tasty, and it is Kiama after all, and there’s not much competition. The service is decent and I really like how they were honest about how long you had to wait for a table. The food was fairly prompt for a busy night, and it was a nice vibrant atmosphere. Worth going to if you’re ever in Kiama.

We ate at:

Ritzy Gritz New Mexican Grill
40 Collins St Kiama NSW 2533
(02) 4232 1853

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Lemon Meringue…in a jar!

Recipe May 23, 2013 2 Comments

I’ve been on a bit of a dessert binge lately – I keep telling myself that I burn more calories in the cold, and so am allowed to consume more. I know it doesn’t quite work that way, but it helps me sleep at night. So when I saw these adorable individual lemon meringues in jars I just couldn’t help myself.

It’s incredibly simple. Just layer some crumbled cake in a jar – I just had some leftover from some experimental baking I did – with lemon curd. For added moisture, I drizzled the cake with leftover limoncello syrup I had from the Lemon Tiramisu, and then topped everything with a meringue, which is simply egg whites and sugar beaten to glossy stiff peaks.

Then when it was time to serve, I just took a blowtorch to the top, which I must admit was the bit that was the most fun. These little pots of tangy sugary goodness just help me cling desperately to spring and summer like the jilted mistress of a billionaire tycoon.

And really. I can’t get over how cute these jars are!! It’s the perfect start to the weekend. Makes me wonder what else I can pack into jar form…

What I ate: Pumpkin and Blue Cheese Gnocchi

what i ate May 22, 2013 2 Comments

It’s that time of the week again – when you want something delicious, but you don’t want to go through the hassle and production of spending the whole evening in the kitchen preparing dinner.

And let’s face it – everyone wouldn’t mind something new for their meals. Cooking in big batches gets rid of the need to be cooking all the time, but (I don’t know about you) I tend to have a short attention span when it comes to my meals, and after the second meal of the same thing I’m off looking for other things to feed myself with.

That being said, leftovers are a wonderful thing! I like them because you can always repurpose them in creative ways for your new meal, and you can clear a few little containers of food at one go. For this speedy meal I used:

Gnocchi (I made a large batch once and have a bag of them in my freezer. You can use bought gnocchi if you’d like)
Roast pumpkin (Leftover from the weekend)
Stilton Blue Cheese (I had a hunk just sitting in my fridge)
Cream
Truffle honey (a treat for me, any honey will do though)

And as with all my other What I Ate posts, there aren’t any quantities. Just get creative! I boiled the gnocchi until it floated to the top of the water, drained it, then in the pot I just emptied, I warmed the pumpkin up (there was oil from the roasting already). And since the pumpkin was roasted with thyme and garlic, there’s your flavour boost that’s already been incorporated into the ingredient. Then I add the hot gnocchi back into the pot, add a little bit of cream, crumbled some blue cheese on the top, and drizzled some honey over just before digging in.

It was creamy and comforting, and used up stuff I just had sitting in my fridge/freezer and pantry. Don’t have roast pumpkin handy? Well just about any roast root vegetables would do – I would use roast carrot, parsnips, capsicum…not so much potato though, because there are potatoes in the gnocchi. But it’s completely up for interpretation! Don’t like blue cheese? Add some cheddar and turn it into a gnocchi version of mac’n’cheese!

The variations are endless, and I’m no longer bored when I need to clear my fridge. Especially when I get into a cooking mood over the weekend and there are containers of random things everywhere.

What’s your favourite way of using up leftovers?

Easy Lemon Tiramisu – no sabayon!

Recipe May 17, 2013 1 Comment

I’ve still got some Anatoth lemon curd that was sent to me by Beyond the Square – thank you Carrie! I think fruit curds are a fabulous way to recapture that sensation of summer, and the tart lemon curd just brings a spot of brightness to my day.

I saw this great Limoncello Tiramisu recipe from Italian Food Forever that I just had to try out. The best part was that there was no need for a sabayon!! No splitting eggs, no whipping egg yolks and sugar over a bain marie, because the lemon curd did that work for you…this was the easiest recipe for tiramisu ever.

This recipe uses limoncello, and because I don’t have a bottle of that at home, I decided to make my own version out of lemon zest and vodka – which is what you’d use in homemade limoncello anyway.

Speedy Limoncello Recipe

You need:
Lemon Zest of 3 lemons
500ml vodka

Soda siphon

So, inspired by Dave Arnold’s post on rapid infusion, I decided to do a little rapid infusion of my own. Basically the idea is that you put a porous product – in this case, lemon zest – into a siphon with liquid, charge the siphon – I used two chargers of nitrous oxide canisters. What basically happens is that the gas pushes the liquid into the porous item, and the rapid venting pushes all the liquid back out, which completes your infusion. I rested the charged siphon for about 5 minutes before venting, and then rested the vented liquid for about 5 minutes before using.

Super simple limoncello.

Next, the Tiramisu

Lemon Tiramisu
Adapted from Italian Food Forever

1 Cup Limoncello Liqueur
1 Cup Water
1/2 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup Lemon Juice
20 Savoiardi or Lady Finger Cookies (1 Package)

For The Mascarpone Cream:
1 1/2 Cups Cream
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 pot/jar of lemon curd
1 (10 Ounce) Jar Lemon Curd, divided

Bring the liquer, water, sugar and lemon juice to the boil, and reduce slightly.

While the syrup is cooling, mix your mascarpone into the lemon curd. Save some to serve on top of the final dish – I used about 1/2 a pot at this stage. In another bowl, whip the cream and sugar to soft peaks, then fold in your mascarpone and lemon mixture.

Then it’s all an assembly job – roll the savoiardi in the syrup (not too long or they’ll fall apart), lay them in a single layer on your serving dish, lay the mascarpone cream over the top, then repeat the process. Grate some lemon zest over the top and voila! You have an easy, delicious dessert that helps you cling to the memories of summer evenings on the front porch awash in golden setting sunlight.

I served mine with a dollop of lemon curd over the top and some walnut pieces, because I like that crunch.

You will have some syrup left over, which you can use in other desserts. It also makes for a refreshing summery lemonade when mixed with a little ice and soda water.

Sky Phoenix, Sydney

Review May 15, 2013 3 Comments

Sydney, especially in Chinatown, has a fair few decent Yum Cha places. The Phoenix chain of restaurants are especially reputable, with many restaurants dotted throughout the busier suburbs in Sydney.

Sky Phoenix isn’t particularly outstanding, but it’s got decent food, and decent enough service.

It’s definitely consistent, and it’s a great option in the city, especially if you’re meeting friends for a shopping trip, and feel like going for some dim sum.

We ate at:

Sky Phoenix
77 Castlereagh St
Sydney, NSW 2000

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