More Cat's Vom.

I have about a zillion recipes for awesome food. Really REALLY awesome food. Food so good it will make you weep and hear heavenly choirs. There's just one unfortunate thing about some of these recipes.

They pretty much look like a cat has vomited on a plate.

Which, given that no one has invented Smell-O-Vision for Blogger yet, means that providing you with a picture will pretty much have the opposite effect I am looking for. Dry retching over your keyboard is NOT the effect I was hoping for.

So you'll need to use your imagination on this one.

When I was married to the Wasband, we had a dear friend known as Mr Yum-Yum. He would come over regularly and cook these awesome Vietnamese dishes. It was Mr Yum-Yum that first introduced me to rice noodle soup, wet cake and hair vegetable, now more than 20 years ago. He was Chinese-Viet, and learned watching his Grandma cook, back in Saigon.

This is my very favourite Mr Yum Yum recipe, and was a staple dish during my pregnancy with the Lima Bean. Think a sort of Vietnamese laksa or Tom Gai.

I have no idea what this is called in Viet, and a quick Google of "Vietnamese Sweet Soup" yielded nothing, so if the recipe is familiar to anyone, do drop me a line in the comments section and tell me about it.

Mr Yum-Yum's Vietnamese Sweet Soup. (feeds 4)

1kg chicken legs/drumsticks with skin on. Each drumstick chopped into 3-4 pieces with a freakin' big Asian cleaver.

Marinate in:

1tablespoon curry powder (I use Hoyt's for this, but Clive of India is good too) and a goodly slosh of Vietnamese light soy. Grate a knob of fresh ginger and 2 cloves on garlic. Add chopped-up chicken and marinate for 2 hours.

In a large, heavy based pot, bring 2 tablespoons of peanut oil to a gentle heat, add 1 stick of lemon grass bashed and smashed. Sloooooooowly simmer the lemon grass stalk, trying to render the essential lemon grass oil into the cooking oil. This usually takes about 10 mins on a gentle heat, stirring constantly.

Remove lemon grass stalks from oil

THIS NEXT STEP CAN BE OMITTED IF YOU CAN'T FIND ANNATTO SEEDS,
Gently infuse a teaspoon of annatto seeds in the lemon grass oil until the oil is a deep orange/red. Be very careful, as overheating the seeds means they will burn and the oil will be bitter and unusable. ALSO, overheated seeds tend to "pop" and leave scorchingly hot, bright red stains all over your kitchen and you clothing. This is a "do-not-want" situation. Once the oil is the right colour, let it cool and remove the seeds.

Bring the now-seedless oil back to a nice high temp and add the now-marinated chicken. Fry off until brown and add 1 whole diced sweet potato or 4 diced waxy white potatoes. Stir until coated with oil.

Add 1 can coconut milk, 1 can of sweetened condensed milk and a litre of chicken stock. Drop heat down to a simmer and cover. Cook for about 30 mins or until potato is tender.



Add 250g of fresh okra, peas or beans, and cook a further 5 mins.

Slop into huge big Asian-soup bowls, and serve with a crusty Vietnamese roll.

Ok, it will LOOK like cat's vom, but it will taste like majik.

Summer's fading

Summer's on its way out here in the Southern Hemi. It's not's cool yet, but Autumn is on the horizon.

One of the loveliest things about eating seasonally is the cycle of foods. How just as you are grieving the last of the summer stone fruits, you are also getting excited about the lovely Autumn pears. The BBQ pan and the salad bowls slowly make way for tart dishes and slow cookers.

There are a couple of things that set off, in my mind, that Summer is ending. My birthday (being the last day of Summer) and also my Pesto Frenzy.

It seems that about mid way throught Feb, I suddenly realise that basil will soon be out of my reach, and I get all thingy about it. I buy up scadulous quantities of it (because it steadfastly refuses to grow for me, no matter where I've lived. I have a basil black thumb). I make up an enormous batch of pesto and freeze it, or jar it, to get me through the long, lonely days until it reappears magically filling the air with its peppery tang, somewhere around October next year.

Frozen and jarred pesto is lovely, but there is really nothing like the fresh original.

As per most really REALLY good things, it's simple, easy and takes no time.

Take as much basil as you can get your hands on, whack it in a container that you can get a stick blender into. Add a whole shitload of garlic ( I used 8 bunches of basil and 8 big cloves of garlic). Also add a handful of roasted pine nuts or (as I did here) roasted cashews and about 1/2 a cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Blend the whole lot with the stick blender until pureed, adding a goodly amount of excellent quality olive oil ( I use Narbali olive oil). Don't scrimp. You will be suprised at how much oil you will need.

Whazz the whole lot up, until it has the thickness of beaten cream, season to taste and plate up. Add some crushed cashews/pinenuts and drizzle some more oil over the top. Most excellent on really REALLY good pasta (Don't bother wasting it on crap pasta. Spend the money on some good stuff, so you can showcase the pesto). It's also orsum stuffed under the skin of an organic chook and baked.. whack a nice organic orange in the cavity. Spread it on crusty pasta dura and top with sliced tomatoes and baby bocs.

It's best freshly made, just like this. It will keep in the freezer, or in a jar in the 'fridge for about 3 months. But that first, luscious spoonful, mixed through warm pasta is my idea of end-of-Summer heaven.

Roasted beetroot, garlic and cumin dip.

The last of the root vegetables are slowly fading out of season, so I thought it might be a good time to really showcase the last of these Winter wonders. This weekend past, I had to opportunity of catching up with the very delightful Gottie and Bluenose from SOLE Mama's. Bluey has a bit of a rep for coming up with these outstanding cocktail mixes, known to all as Magic Potions, and this time was no different. We were met at the door with a glass of bubbly tinted with a mix of raspberries, Cointreau or Grand Marnier and lemon juice. If I ever work out how to get the damn pics of my new phone, I'll post them.

I was asked to bring some dips, so I went with a couple of classics (Hommus and Tzatiki... home made the sloooooow way) and something a bit out-of-the-ordinary, Roasted Beetroot dip. This dip is a zillion times easier, tastier and more vibrant than anything you're likely to get at the shops, and the end result is a deep earthy, almost musky flavour that reminds me of the smell of the air after a Summer thunderstorm . Don't bother trying it with anything other than fresh, whole beetroots.

pg's Roasted Beetroot, Garlic and Cumin dip.

pan roast a one and a half teaspoons of cumin seeds in a non-stick pan for 30-45 seconds, or until fragrant. Set aside to cool.

Cut the top and bottom off a fresh beetroot. Discard. Chop beet into quarters and place on baking tray. Bake at 180-200C for 30 mins.

At the 30 min mark, take a whole head of garlic, slice about 1/2cm off the top, exposing all the individual cloves. Bung on the oven tray with the beetroot and roast a further 15-20 mins until beet is tender.

Let the beet cool slightly and then peel. Use rubber gloves to handle the beet, or you'll look like you've been axe murdering pigs.

Whack the peeled beets and 1 teaspoon of roasted cumin seeds in a blender, or use a stick blender. Squeeze the roasted cloves of garlic in and pulse until combined.

When cool, add a tub of sour cream and stir through.

Serve, garnished with remaining cumin seeds and lavosh.

Yabbies with Garlic Butter.

One of the wonderful things about living where I do, is the access to Crown Land. You can harvest mushroom, wild nettles, fish in dams and creeks, hunt and forage to your hearts content!!

Recently Furry and Master 12.5 discovered a dam on Crown Land, down near Chez Fur de Mer. We bought a yabby net, and last weekend my intrepid duo set off to catch me some yabbies.

They were beyond successful, returning home with seven yabbies at least 6 inches long!! The key to cooking yabbies, or any caught shellfish is to let them fast and clean themselves out. What you have to so is put them in the bath for 24 hours to "purge". Some people add carrot or lettuce to hasten the process of cleaning out the digestive tract, but I find that a goodly 24 hours in fresh clean water, changing it every couple of hours or so, does the trick.

Now, I tried to get some photos to show the size of these beauties, but the little buggers kept swimming around.. but heres not a bad one to show you the size and the colour of them, pre cooking...



Notice the "fuzz" on the legs and thorax of a yabby this large. This is pond scum and you DO NOT WANT THIS IN YOUR FINAL DISH, which is why you kill them and then segment the body, discarding the fluffy bits.



The smaller yabbies in the corner of this photo are white yabbies.. ones that have recently discarded their too-small shells. They don't have pond scum on them and can be added to the dish whole.

Kill the yabbies by bringing a large pot of heavily salted water to the boil and dropping the yabbies in quickly, one by one. Too many yabbies at the one time cools the water off and it's just not humane..

I killed the yabbies big ones first, one at a time, removing the yabby from the boiling water as soon as it had changed colour to pink. The large ones I removed the head and thorax, and also the hind legs and ran the remaining edible pieces under cold water to flush.

The smaller ones I left whole.

In a large cast iron pan heat 1/4 stick of butter, 1/2 a red onion very finely chopped and 3 large cloves of garlic, also finely chopped.

Bring butter to sizzling point, add the onions and the garlic, toss until onions are glassy and add the yabby bits.



toss the yabbies in the butter until well coated and a goodly shade of red..



Serve with a wedge of lemon or lime, on parpadelle, if you like!!





enjoy!!!!