Yearly Archives: 2012

Spice Souk

“You want spice?”

“Where you from?”

“Ni hao!” (‘Hello’ in Chinese lol.)

I’m in the Spice Souk in Dubai and smiling stallholders are trying to persuade me to check out their wares.

As if I needed any encouragement. I’m mesmerised by the exoticness of the spices surrounding me. I marvel at the colours and shapes while dozens of unknown fragrances waft up gently in the warm air.

I’m visiting Dubai with a group of Australian journalists but they’re walking through the Spice Souk too quickly for me; I keep stopping to take photographs. I lose sight of my group and eventually, Lara my patient tour leader returns to find me and tells me that they’ll meet me at the entrance in half an hour.

I’m glad of this time alone; I’m a woman on a mission to explore.

Dubai’s famous Spice Souk is surprisingly small, comprising two main alleyways of shops selling spices, incense, sheeshas (otherwise known as hookas, a water pipe used to smoke flavoured tobacco), kids’ toys and souvenirs.

Some spices, like cinnamon sticks, are immediately recognisable. I love using cinnamon in recipes like Chai rice pudding and roasted Chai flavoured almonds.

These delightful rose buds can be used in tea although I can picture them perched daintily atop some vanilla cupcakes iced with Swiss meringue buttercream.

Do you like herbal tea? The Spice Souk sells all kinds of dried flowers that can be used for brewing tea including chrysanthemum, lavender and hibiscus.

I love hibiscus tea – it’s full of Vitamin C and anti-oxidants.

Could this be cassia bark? It’s a spice similar to cinnamon which I use to make pho (Vietnamese beef noodle soup).

These dried lemons are used for flavouring stews and tagines. I popped one in a Middle Eastern inspired chicken dish I made the other day and it was lovely. The lemon was rock hard so I pierced its skin with a knife so that the cooking stock could easily enter it.

In Australia whole vanilla pods are usually sold individually in neat cellophane pickets – they’re around $AUD3.50 each so I buy them only on special occasions. In Dubai I’m presented with a container full of gorgeously sticky whole vanilla pods. I want to take them all home but restrain myself to just a few – they work out about $AUD2 each.

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It’s three days until Christmas and I have not sent a single Christmas card or bought one present.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

OK. I feel better now.

It’s not that I’m disorganised – it’s just that I’ve been preoccupied with work and life. Actually, maybe that means I am disorganised.

So here’s my last-minute shopping list for Christmas gifts.

1) Gift for my laid-back dad who you can never find anything for because he has everything already

Does your dad like chilli like mine does? Get him a basket full of 8-10 different chilli sauces. He’ll love you for indulging his inner hot freak and for not giving him another CD of love songs from his youth. Or the latest John Grisham or Patricia Cornwall thriller.

2) Gift for my mum who has a sweet tooth but has to watch her sugar intake for health reasons.

Tickets to a great concert or theatre show. OK this is not really food, but you haven’t seen her house – it’s like a candy store with chocolate and sweets spread over every available surface. So I’m actually doing the right thing in buying her concert tickets.

3) Gift for my brother who is insufferably bossy but nearly always right, dammit.

The biggest box of the stickiest, chewiest toffee I can find. If I can’t shut him up maybe I can at least slow him down a bit.

4) Gift for my lovely sister in law who puts up with my brother and is therefore a saint

Haigh’s Chocolates because it is her drug of choice. And while we should say no to drugs we should never say no to chocolate.

5) Gift for my toddler who requests chocolate for breakfast every morning 

Chocolate cars. His two favourite things in the world combined – bazinga!

6) Gift for my six year old daughter who seems to be going through some horrifying hormonal teenage years flash-forward and keeps stealing my lipgloss

The Adventures of the Little Chef by Sydney food blogger Mark Yeow. This book is about a little girl who has to learn how to cook to keep the two monsters under her bed from eating her and her family. Apart from being a great story, all proceeds go to the Fred Hollows Foundation for treating glaucoma, cataracts and other nasty eye-illnesses in countries around the world. Buy it here.

7) Gifts for guests on Christmas Day

Jars of the home-made festive trail mix above and my caramelised onion and chilli jam.

So that’s my Christina shopping list sorted. Now I just have to find the time to get to the shops…

Merry Christmas all! Have a wonderful day full of love, laughter and deliciousness!

Christina xx

* The Adventures of Little Chef was sent to me for my consideration by the author. 

Can you believe it’s only one week until Christmas?

Nope, I can’t believe it, either. This year has flo-o-o-wn by.

I love this time of year. It’s a time to remember what’s important and to spend time with those we care about. It’s a time to give thanks. It’s a time to reflect on the ups and downs of the year and to look to the future with hope and energy.

And of course it’s also a time to eat and indulge one’s sweet tooth! :D

So welcome to Sweet Adventures’ Sweets for Santa Blog Hop.

For those new readers, Sweet Adventures is a group of Aussie foodbloggers – 84th & 3rd, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, Delicieux, Dining With a Stud, and I, The Hungry Australian, who host a monthly, dessert-themed blog hop. You can visit the other blogs taking part in our hops via the thumbnails at the bottom of each post.

Previously, we have hosted: Cake and Three Veg (November 2012); High Tea (October 2012); Feeling Saucy (September 2012); Berry Nice to Meet You! (August 2012); Nuts About Sweets (July 2012); Sweet as Pie (June 2012); What’s Your Cup of Tea? (May 2012); Lemons (April 2012); Layer upon Layer (March 2012); Love at First Bite (February 2012); Death by Chocolate (January 2012); Festive Favourites (December 2011); and Great Australian Pavlova (November 2011).

This month, it was my turn to host again and of course I went with a festive theme.

This Fig, Raspberry & Ginger Ice Cream Cake combines some of my favourite Summer flavours. Figs are at their most luscious now, while the raspberry and ginger help create the ‘wow’ factor.

Merry Christmas everybody. May you all enjoy a day filled with love, laughter and deliciousness!

Sweet Adventures Blog Hop: Sweets for Santa

If you blog about food we’d love you to join this hop. We encourage you to be as creative as you like – the only rule is that your recipe must be something in keeping with the festive theme.

Simply follow the steps below and join the fun!

1. Publish your Sweets for Santa post on your blog sometime between Monday 17 December 2012 – Australian Eastern Standard Time [AEST: Sydney] and will 1:59pm Monday 24 December 2012 AEST. Entries are linked in order of submission and only new festive recipe posts are eligible.
2. Click here for the Link Code. Copy the code and add it to the bottom of your Sweets for Santa post (you will need to do this in HTML view). Adding the code will create the thumbnail gallery of all the other entries and let visitors hop from other blogs to your blog and vice versa. If you are on wordpress.com (i.e. not self hosted) the list will not show on your blog so please create a text link back to this post instead.
3. Grab the Sweets for Santa badge from here and add it to your post. Just right click on the image, ‘save as’, upload to your site and add it to your post. Link the badge or a line of text to this page so that others can view the instructions on how to join.
4. Click here to Enter the Hop. This is really important! The badge and thumbnail list are on your post so make sure to enter the hop so that you appear in the list. For question 1: add the URL of your Sweets for Santa post, not your homepage. For question 2: for caption/title add the name of your dessert. For question 3: for ‘your name’ please enter your blog name. For question 4: your entry is automatically submitted when you click ‘crop’.
5. Your linked post WILL NOT appear straight away in the blog hop thumbnail list as this is a moderated hop. Your post will be visible in the list after approval.
6. Hop around to all the other entries in the blog hop, sharing the comment love.
7. If you are on Twitter use the #SABH to tell the world about your Sweets for Santa post. Follow us @SweetAdvBlogHop or like us on Facebook for new hop announcements and general deliciousness.

If you aren’t sure how to do something please leave a comment or get in touch.

It’s funny how you always want what you don’t have.

When I was growing up in Australia, I wanted to be Oliva Newton-John in Grease. I practised singing like her in front of the mirror, my t-shirt hoiked down over my shoulders to create an off-the-shoulder top like she wore when she sang ‘You’re the One That I Want.’

It was the same with food, too. I craved the simple, plain food my Aussie friends typically ate for dinner. Tuna Mornay, in particular, sent shivers of ecstasy running down my spine.

But Tuna Mornay was not held in the same regard by my friend Megan.

“We call it Tuna Flop, Drop or Slop at my house,” she said cheerfully. “Because it does one of those when it hits the plate.”

Megan and all my Aussie school friends loved having dinner at my house. To them, it was like eating at a Chinese restaurant – they tried all kinds of dishes their parents would never have cooked at home.

Nowadays, most Aussies can manage a simple stir fry or some noodles at home and know the difference between bok choy and bean sprouts.

Still, I love cooking Asian food for people. I love seeing the expression on their face when they try something new and unfamiliar, and fall in love. Or when they discover for themselves how quick and easy a lot of Chinese dishes are to make at home. Best of all, though, is when I get an approving nod from someone who knows what a dish should taste like.

This recipe, Beef Stir Fry, developed recently for Bertolli Olive Oil, is perfect for a quick after-work dinner. Assuming you steam some rice and marinate the beef in advance, dinner can be on the table in ten minutes.

Even my beloved tuna mornay can’t compete with that kind of speedy deliciousness.

Tell me, dear reader, what did you eat at home when you were growing up and what type of food did you wish you were eating?

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Whenever I mentioned I was going to Dubai at the end of October the response was always the same.

“Dubai? Wow. Hey, you can do Sex and the City 2. Camels! Caftans!”

I’m happy to report I managed to experience two out of three during Arabian Adventures Sundowner Desert Safari – I rode on a camel and stylish Paula Joye, who was part of my media group, wore not one but two gorgeous caftans to our dinner under the stars.

I had fantasised about riding a camel in a caftan or long flowing dress in the desert but on the day practicality ruled and I wore jeans. And that’s why I’m a food blogger, not a fashion blogger.

So here’s how it went.

We were picked up from our hotel — Media One — at 3pm and driven out to the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, in the heart of the desert.

First up, a falconry demonstration.

Trained falcons have been used for hunting in the Middle East for around 18 centuries; ancient Bedouin tribes used them to provide meat for their families during the winter months. They would trap a young bird in the autumn, hunt with them throughout winter and then release them at the end of the hunting season so that the bird could migrate to cooler climates. Nowadays, thanks to air-conditioning, falcons can be kept all year around.

The bird above has a helmet covering its eyes and ears. According to the falcon’s handler this sensory deprivation was designed to help the bird remain relaxed — off-line, if you like — before a flight. Once the helmet was removed the bird went into attack — or online mode — with all its senses at their most acute.

While the handler explained some of the bird’s hunting habits he played out a long rope that he’d attached some raw meat to, swinging it higher and higher in the air. The falcon circled and then swooped, time and time again, with the handler deftly swinging it just out of reach.

At the end of the demonstration, he let the bird catch the bait and then further rewarded him with some extra meat.

See that antenna on the falcon’s back? No, it’s not a remote control device but a GPS tracker. So if the falcon decides to make an unscheduled flight over the border to “visit his girlfriend”, as his handler put it, his handler knows where to find him.

It was then onto the dune bashing.

We’d previously been warned to let the guides know if we had bad backs or were pregnant as dune bashing can be quite a bumpy experience. Now I hate any kind of turbulence but I found dune bashing mostly fine, with just a few hairy moments. So I think most people should be OK with it.

I tried to take photos/video using my DSLR but quickly realised I was in danger of breaking my new camera. So here’s a photo and video taken on my Iphone.

This video was taken during the relatively flat part of the drive. During the bumpy parts I was too busy hanging on for dear life to worry about filming!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMRXNPkojdI

We stopped for a break just in time to catch the sunset.

The obligatory ‘here I am in the desert’ shot.

After that we drove straight onto the Bedouin-style camp. Upon arrival, we had the option to enjoy a short camel ride. This was my camel and my rather glum looking guide. I was hoping for a line like, “Madam, your camel awaits” but all I got was,”hold on tight” lol.

After the short ride, it was really quite dark so I headed straight into the camp to explore. At the entrance was this lovely display of herbs and spices – it smelled so wonderfully exotic.

Usually, the camp hosts around 300 people each trip and a belly dancer provides the entertainment after dinner. The evening we visited alcohol was not allowed due to Eid being the next day so there was less than 100 of us and no bellydancer, which was a shame.

Still, we had a great time. Before dinner we went to get henna tattoos done.

It’s funny how different men and women are. Men go for fierce and/or tough tattoos.

While women go for pretty tattoos.

Then it was time for dinner. Seated under the stars we enjoyed a feast of Middle Eastern grilled meats, breads, rices and fresh salads, including hummous, tabouli, and bean salad.

After dinner we chatted and wandered around the camp. You could buy some sand art — see below — or enjoy a shisa (waterpipe).

Then it was time for dessert: fresh fruit, and a flaky pistachio and honey dessert, very similar to baklava.

Being in the desert was a novel experience, and one that I’ll remember for many years to come.

On the way home, one of my travel companions remarked that she’d wished we’d been able to camp overnight. I agreed. Arabian Adventures offer overnight stays at very reasonable prices, and I’ll definitely do this next time I visit.

Arabian Adventures ‘Sundownder’ Desert Safari
AED 360 per adult / AED 300 dirhams per child
Book here. 

You might also be interested in my previous post — Dubai by Instagram.

Christina Soong-Kroeger travelled to Dubai as a guest of Emirates and Dubai Tourism. All flights, meals, accomodation, tours and transfers were courtesy of the hosts. 

I love feeding people.

Maybe it’s the Chinese mother in me but I often express my affections through food. So if you’re in my good books, I’m going to want to feed you.

So every year when Christmas rolls around, my daughter and I make an edible Christmas present for our special friends.

Last year we made this Sweet & Salty Chocolate Bark and the two years before that we made snickerdoodles, those sugar and cinnamon-crusted biscuits. She was only three years old the first time so she just dipped the cookie dough into the sugar and cinnamon mixture and then licked her fingers all over.

This year we haven’t decided what to cook yet. I have a gorgeous new KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer thanks to the lovely people at Filtered Media and KitchenAid so I’m definitely going to be making something with it.

Maybe we should make a few different batches of home-made ice cream and serve it like this delightful dish at Press Food & Wine that I enjoyed a little while ago. Christmas Day is bound to be hot here in Australia so ice cream could be just the thing.

Alternatively, I have some cute Christmas-themed cookie cutters so we could make festive biscuits with a marshmallow fondant. My daughter and my toddler son should be able to manage helping with the cut outs and pressing on the fondant. They’ll be extremely good at helping to eat them, too.

There’s also Christmas Day lunch to consider, and this year I think I’m going to make some kind of show-stopping cake. Christmas is a great excuse to whip up something rather special, isn’t it?

So why all this talk about Christmas, I hear you ask?

Well, this month it’s my honour to be hosting Sweet Adventures’ Sweets for Santa Blog Hop.

For those new readers, Sweet Adventures is a group of Aussie foodbloggers – 84th & 3rd, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, Delicieux, Dining With a Stud, and I, The Hungry Australian, who host a monthly, dessert-themed blog hop.

Previously, we have hosted:

• Cake and Three Veg (November 2012)
• High Tea (October 2012)
• Feeling Saucy (September 2012)
• Berry Nice to Meet You! (August 2012)
• Nuts About Sweets (July 2012)
• Sweet as Pie (June 2012)
• Tea (May 2012)
• Lemons (April 2012)
• Layer upon Layer (March 2012)
• Love at First Bite (February 2012)
• Death by Chocolate (January 2012)
• Festive Favourites (December 2011)
• Australian Pavlova (November 2011)

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Sometimes food is swoon-worthy.

You know what I mean.

Your teeth sink into a dish and the minute the food reaches your tastebuds you see shooting stars. Your pulse quickens, and you forget your name. The conversation fades away, the lights dim and the world is reduced to the food in your mouth.

Every sense — sight, sound, hearing, taste, smell — is focused only on your object of desire.

You breathe deeply, savouring the exquisite fleetingness of culinary bliss. You nod slowly and thoughtfully, all at once grateful and humbled. And you lick your lips, whimpering just a little.

It’s a bit like falling in love.

Now readers of my last post will know that I recently visited Dubai and enjoyed high tea at Raffles there. One of the sandwiches was a rolled white bread sandwich with a quail egg, a baby sprig of asparagus and a dash of truffle oil. The combination was so sublime I couldn’t contain a spontaneous groan of pleasure and I immediately noted it down in my ‘Things to Cook’ list on my Ipad.

The other day while shopping at the Adelaide Central Market I spotted some quail eggs.

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I can’t believe it was only a month ago that I visited Dubai – life is so busy at the moment that it feels like it was a year ago. I’m going to blog a series of weekly posts on Dubai over the next month but to kick us off, I thought I’d try something different. So here are some of my favourite (unedited) Dubai Instagrams.

The top Instagram was taken in the foyer of Raffles Dubai – lots of gold, lots of Egyptian motifs, lots of heavenly dark red roses.

This was possibly the best creme brûlée of my life – the taste, texture, and mouthfeel was superb. It was the culinary equivalent of sinking into a pile of satin sheets and I ate it in the Emirates lounge at Melbourne Airport. A most unexpected and delightful surprise.

This is the view from the 2nd most expensive suite at the Burj Al Arab, billed as the word’s most luxurious hotel. Yes, that’s right, that’s The World – those man-made islands shaped to resemble the continents of the world. If you want to experience waking up to that view — and it was jaw-dropping — it’ll set you back a cool 60,000 dirhams.

This was the fashion & beauty-themed high tea at Raffles Dubai. How adorable is that shoe? We were each given an extra shoe to take home, too, just like Cinderella in reverse!

I visited the Dubai Mall three times in all, the final time at 11pm at night – it was the beginning of Eid so the mall was open 24 hours/day and it was jumping. Whilst navigating the miles of shops, I stumbled across Ladurée, which had recently opened in Australia (Sydney).

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Sometime last year I came across another Adelaide blog called A Kitchen for Friends, as it’s publisher — one Justin Chai — had written a post in which he said some nice things about this blog.

Later, Justin and his lovely girlfriend, Janice, came along to an Adelaide Food Bloggers Group meet up at the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers Market. Justin (and Janice) were exactly as they came across in Justin’s blog – friendly, down-to-earth, enthusiastic and passionate about food.

Since that early meeting Justin and Janice have started catering parties and are even doing the canapés for a wedding in December. It started innocently enough — Justin offered to throw a work colleagues’ daughter a 3-course 21st birthday dinner — but then other people started asking them to cater their gatherings and who knows where it will end. It’s all very exciting and I’m thrilled for them.

So when I knew I was going to be having a very busy October/November, I asked Justin if he’d like to do a guest post for The Hungry Australian. It’s a little later than we both expected (sorry Justin!) but I’m delighted to hand him the reins so he can share some memories of his recent trip to Venice and a very interesting pasta dish with us.

Welcome Justin!

PS Scroll to the bottom of the post for a cute photo of Justin and Janice (centre) and friends eating this dish.
PPS You can also head over to Justin’s blog for great step-by-step photographs to illustrate each step of his recipe.

Spaghetti al Nero di Seppia

From traditional eateries nestled within its coastal towns to unassuming trattorias hidden away in the maze of alleyways sprawled out across its bustling cities, almost every food stop we made in Italy left us with déjà vu of other blissful culinary experiences.

The Venetian island of Burano houses more than just its iconic rainbow-coloured buildings and beautiful laces. Populated by a tightly knit community which continues to live of the cornucopia of ocean bounty, it is of no surprise that the locals here treat their seafood with the utmost care and respect.

But one particular Venetian food establishment and the humble creation it birthed from the confines of its age-old kitchen well-deserves a written piece of its own.

The Trattoria da Romano is a perfect example of such a culture. Even Anthony Bourdain himself sings its praises in one of the many travel destinations he covers on his No Reservations television series. Of course we ordered the highly recommended “Go” fish risotto: perfectly cooked rice grains in a milky white broth which seemed to just burst with heavenly flavours of the sea!

But if the risotto was analogous to yin, may I then introduce you to its yang, its black brotha’ from another motha’…

Friends, meet the Spaghetti al Nero di Seppia!

So what exactly is it? Well, do you remember the last time you saw a David Attenborough documentary on sea creatures? Remember seeing a squid doing what looked like an underwater fart – releasing black clouds all over a poor shark which just wanted lunch? That’s right people, we ate all of that black goo…

…And boy was it good! As I licked my fork, spoon, plate, fingers – well, just about anything which came into contact with that rather unflattering yet simply delectable pasta – I looked around the table to my travel companions and knew right away that our thoughts were as coherent as ever.

How could we possibly go back to Australian pasta after eating this?!!!

It was presented in such a simple manner yet it was so rich in flavour! It somewhat frustrated me because I just could not comprehend how they could make it taste so good when there seemed to be so little ingredients on display. But that dish at Burano left me inspired and determined to reproduce what I ate there with Australia’s very own produce. It also taught me that food does not always have to be elaborate to taste good.

So here’s my amateur take on producing simplicity on a plate!

Spaghetti del Nero di Seppi

 

Author: Justin Chai, A Kitchen for Friends

Recipe type: Main

Prep time:  20 mins

Cook time:  30 mins

Total time:  30 mins

Print

Pasta with squid ink - a goth looking pasta with all the flavours of the sea!

Ingredients

• 5 garlic cloves
• 1 red onion
• ½ bunch flat leaf parsley leaves
• 2 bird’s eye chillies
• 400g whole prawns (raw)
• 500g whole squid
• Squid ink (from ink sac)
• EVOO
• 1 cup of dry white wine
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 400g tomato puree
• 500g cooked spaghetti

Instructions

1. Finely dice the garlic cloves, red onion and parsley leaves.
2. De-seed the birds-eye chillies and finely dice them as well
3. De-shell and de-vein the fresh prawns.
4. Place the prawn shells and heads in small pot, fill it with just enough water to cover the shells and bring it to a gentle boil. Once the stock begins to boil, lower the gas and allow it to simmer for 20-30 minutes.
5. Now on to the daunting (and messy!) task of cleaning, prepping – well basically, giving a total make-over to one of the cephalopod family’s many ugly members. We’re going to try keeping the task as clean as possible, but don’t test your luck – you might want to replace that white t-shirt pronto.
6. Start off by pulling the head and tentacles portion off from the body.
7. Now, carefully remove the ink sac in one piece from innards.
8. Bring the sac to the kitchen sink (trust me on this one), gently puncture the sac and empty the ink into a small bowl filled with 20ml of water.
9. Beware of sneaky squirts! Squeeze and squeeze with all your might people, because we will need every drop of that blackish goodness to give our pasta some character!
10. Cut across the head, separating the tentacles as a whole. Discard those horrid looking eyeballs and any innards you may find.
11. Using a sharp knife, slice through the wings and separate them from the body.
12. Slide your finger underneath the purplish skin lining its body and wings, peel it off and discard.
13. Remove backbone from the tube.
14. Using a long spoon, scrape and discard more gooey innards out of the tube.
15. Give all the different squid parts a thorough wash.
16. Slice the tubular body into 1 cm rings, the wings and tentacles in bite-sized pieces and set aside.
17. With all the prep work done, time to bring on the heat!
18. Start off by lining a pan with a few splashes of extra virgin olive oil over low to medium heat.
19. Sauté the combination of finely diced onions and garlic until the onions appear translucent – releasing that inviting aroma we all love.
20. Turn up the gas to medium and deglaze the pan with a cup of dry white wine.
21. Allow things to simmer, eventually reducing the liquid down to ⅓ of the original amount.
22. Now, add approximately 400ml of the prawn stock you made earlier to the pan followed by the finely diced chilies, tomato paste and puree.
23. Next comes the squid pieces and all that sea goodness from its ink!
24. Mix everything around to incorporate.
25. Bring the liquid up to a gentle simmer and then allow it to reduce to a viscous consistency. Patience is key here. You don’t want the sauce to be too runny. Rather, the task here is to rid of at least ⅔ of the sauce’s water content - retaining the essence of flavour in the medium which will coat our pasta. You’ll thank me later.
26. Once the right consistency has been achieved, add in the prawns - being really careful not to overcook them. 1-2 minutes should suffice.
27. Throw in half the chopped up parsley leaves, reserving the rest when you plate up.
28. Season with sea salt and black pepper (although you shouldn’t have to do much of it because the natural seafood flavours from the prawn and squid will be sure to boldly make themselves known to your palate.)
29. Now all that’s left is to mix it all up with your favourite pasta (good ol’ spaghetti will suit it pretty well) and serve it up to your soon to be goth-looking friends!

2.2.8

(c) All photos and text by Justin Chai, A Kitchen for Friends.

Having a Chinese mother is like having your most loyal champion and your fiercest enemy somehow spliced together in an unfortunate science experiment.

She sees you at your best and she sees you at your worst.

For Chinese mothers there are no sense of boundaries, no ‘no-go’ zones where advice is not appropriate or allowed. My mother regularly tells me what she thinks about every aspect of my life and she pulls no punches.

She has extremely high expectations of my brother and I, too, and isn’t afraid to share them. When admonished, she merely says, “I know how much you’re capable of.”

I can’t help but admire that sense of certainty. I’m sure my parents’ unwavering belief in us is partly the reason why I’m never afraid to try new things and why I’m not scared to fail. I accept that making mistakes is an essential part of life; if I’m not making any mistakes I’m probably not trying hard enough.

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I’ve been popping up in all kinds of places lately. Read on for details of Eat Drink Blog 3, a new recipe site, two great recipe e-books, a fab food blogger hop, new client news and recent press clippings.

Eat Drink Blog 3

I’ve been enjoying reading all the lovely, thoughtful and thought-provoking posts about the 3rd Australian Food Bloggers Conference, which concluded Sunday night. The two-day event, which saw 80 food bloggers from nearly every state in Australia visit Adelaide last week, was managed by a volunteer committee of Adelaide food bloggers, who worked countless hours to ensure a successful, bar-raising weekend. So high fives to Amanda, Kirsty, Erin, Alex, Natasha, and Celeste – we did good.

Edit: here’s a pic of us at the beginning of the weekend courtesy of Simon Leong from Simon Food Favourites. Thanks Simon! And can I also say a heartfelt THANK YOU to the genius who invented concealer? You would never guess I was completely loopy-loo from a combination of jet-lag and 4+ hours/sleep a night for the week leading up to the conference.

Thanks must also go to our fantastic sponsors, and most importantly, our major sponsor, the South Australian Tourism Commission, and to Michele D’Aloia, Caitlin Jones and Barbara Storey.

Sadly, I hardly got to chat with any of the delegates properly and missed most of the sessions. Oh well – I’ll just have to read everybody else’s blog posts and look forward to attending next year’s event as a regular delegate!

New recipe site

A few months ago I was commissioned to develop a new recipe site — Amazing Almonds — for the Almond Board of Australia to showcase almonds. We launched last month with some great recipes and articles about almonds, and each month I’ll be adding more recipes — like the Almond & Parmasen Crusted Fish above — interviews and helpful articles.

So if you love almonds, head on over to Amazing Almonds. I’d love to know what you think so any feedback via the site’s comments section would be much appreciated.

New Recipe E-Books

Love recipes? Of course you do if you’re reading this blog!

Two of my recipes have been included in two new e-books that are now available.

Firstly, Ocean Spray commissioned two recipes using their cranberry products for a new e-book featuring Australian food bloggers. I made a Warm Duck Salad (see above) and a crowd-pleasing Berry Trifle – you can download the Ocean Spray recipe e-book free here.

Secondly, a couple of months ago Lauren from Corridor Kitchen asked if I’d like to be involved in an e-book of blogger recipes she was producing called The Potluck Club with all proceeds going to Foodbank, Australia’s largest food relief organisation. We were asked to contribute a low-cost but full flavour recipe and I chose my mother’s Feel Good Fish & Eggplant Curry (see above).

You can download The Potluck Club e-book for $5.95 here and then pat yourself on the back for being both generous and clever in sourcing a great recipe e-book. For more information about the e-book click here.

Cake & Three Veg – this months’ Sweet Adventures blog hop

As regular readers will know, I’m one of the hostesses of Sweet Adventures monthly dessert blog hops. Sadly I had to miss last month’s hop due to a hectic work schedule so I’m doubly pleased to be able to make this hop.

This month, the lovely JJ at 84th & 3rd is hosting Cake & Three Veg, so we’re inviting food bloggers everywhere to post their favourite vegie dessert recipes and join in the fun. The hop opens on Monday 19th November and will remain open for a week for you to link up your post. For more information check out JJ’s post.

New clients & New Projects

This month, apart from my regular gigs with Amazing Almonds, About.com, and Honest Cooking, I’m excited to be working on new projects for the #1 olive oil worldwide, Bertolli (recipe development, food styling and photography), She Knows (recipe development, food styling, photography + writing) and Hardie Grant Publishing (freelance writing).

Thanks to all for the opportunity to work with you. I love the variety of the freelance life!

Press Clippings

I’ve been honoured by some recent press. You may have seen me popping up in Adelaide Matters with some of my fellow Eat Drink Blog committee members, in In Daily with my Grandmother’s prawn sambal recipe or on the ABC website holding a bowl of almonds.

It’s very odd being at the receiving end of a camera for a change – next time I’m calling in hair and makeup!

Christina xx 

PS all photos by moi except the top two taken by the talented KK from ParcStudio

Wow, I had no idea blogging the words ‘going off the grid’ would provoke such a flurry of concerned emails and phone messages.

Thank you to those of you who understood and allowed me some space to breathe.

I’m fine, really. I just needed time to regroup after an exceptionally busy couple of months with new clients and new projects, a trip to Dubai and last weekend’s mammoth 3rd Australian Food Bloggers Conference weekend that I helped to organise.

One thing about being a consultant/freelancer is that you’re never really off-duty. I work odd hours of the day and night, seven days a week. And I actually don’t mind it because I love my work. I’m so incredibly grateful that I have a job that I love that I can do flexibly from home.

Unfortunately, the downside to the consulting/freelance life is that you are constantly in danger of overdoing it and putting yourself last as you say yes to all the opportunities and requests that come your way.

This type of pace is fantastic for short-term growth, but untenable in the long-run. So ‘going off the grid’ was my way of saying ‘Woah. Time out.’

And I’m glad I did it. I played with my kids, pottered around the house, went to bed early, and got a massage.

Similarly, I’m also happy that I’ve started saying ‘no’ to things. Well, actually, I’ve always said no to 95% of the pitches and advertising proposals that landed in my inbox. But now I’ve started saying no to invitations, opportunities and requests I would have said yes to three months ago. Because each request requires time and work on my part and there are only so many hours in the day. So I’m learning to prioritise. This feels good, too.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I’ll be back to my normal blog programming with my next post. I have lots of great recipes, photographs and stories to share with you!

Christina xx

Thanks for all the lovely feedback about Eat Drink Blog 3.

I’m ‘off the grid’ at the moment, taking a break from emails, ‘phone calls and social media. Unless you’re a paying client, natch.

But if you are wondering how Eat Drink Blog 3 went, you can check out this fantastic video by Simon Leong from Simon Food Favourites. Thanks Simon!

Edit:prefer old-school blog posts over video? Click here for the latest EDB3 posts.

Hello there! After a fabulous week spent exploring Dubai I’m now back in Adelaide, with a (metaphoric) pile of work on my desk and all the last-minute arrangements for Eat Drink Blog 3 to tackle before the two-day conference this weekend.

On November 3-4, we’ll be introducing 80 food bloggers from nearly every state in Australia to the joys and delights of South Australian food and wine before treating them to a full-day conference featuring expert speakers and presenters, practical workshops and exclusive networking.

I’m proud to be part of the organising committee for the third Australian food blogging conference, working alongside my fellow committee members, Amanda, Kirsty, Erin, Alex, Natasha, and Celeste. EDB3 has grown bigger than any of us could have imagined and alongside it, we’ve grown as a food blogging community, too.

Continue reading →

Hello! I’m typing this from the rather fabulous Jumeirah Creekside Hotel in Dubai. I’ve just arrived for a week’s famil (media trip) hosted by Emirates and Dubai Tourism.

I’m a little tired but not half as tired as I would usually be because the Emirates business class flight last night was so very comfortable.

Chair that turned into a flat bed? Check. Great food and excellent silver service? Check. Bvlgari toiletries bag? Check. Space to stretch out and pretend I was in a space pod while I caught up on all the latest movies? Check.

I can’t wait to blog about all my experiences here but in the meantime, I wanted to share a few photographs with you.

I found these sizable beauties at the Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market last Sunday for $9.99/dozen unshucked. They looked too good to resist so I bought them home and used them in some recipes for my Australian & New Zealand Food site on About.com.

Have you ever shucked oysters before? I hadn’t but it wasn’t too tricky.

You just insert the tip of the oyster knife into the oyster’s hinge, wriggle it around deeper into the shell and then twist the knife to lever the oyster open. It is a messy business, though, so an apron and gloves is recommended.

I adore oysters – they’e one of nature’s perfect foods.

These natural oysters were dressed with macerated spring onions and freshly ground pepper. Simple but delicious.

I went for some Thai flavours for this dish, dressing natural oysters with fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, coriander and chilli.

For all the recipes check out Australian & New Zealand Food on About.com

By the way, these are my first blog photos taken with my new Nikon D600. I shot with a Panasonic G3 Micro 4/3rds prior to this, and while it was a great camera, I’ve been completely won over by my first full-frame.

So tell me, how do you like to eat your oysters?

PS Why not explore Dubai with me? Follow me on Twitter and Instagram for real-time updates.

Hello my dear readers!

I haven’t forgotten you – it’s just that life has been rushing past at a furious pace lately. Frankly, I’ve been swamped with client projects and Eat Drink Blog 3 conference organisation. I’m going to be posting some new material later this week but in the meantime, I have a fantastic giveaway for you.

Now if you’re reading this blog chances are you love food as much as I do. So you probably enjoy learning about people who make their living by working with food. What really inspires you, though, is when you come across those true foodies, those people who always searching for that elusive perfect meal but accept that it’s the journey that is important, not the destination.

Many years ago, I bought a book randomly at an airport — Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain — and devoured it in one flight. True passion can never be faked – and here was a man who lived, breathed and ate food with such conviction.

It’s partly Anthony’s influence that set me off this path of food blogging some 16 months ago, a journey that has created opportunities that I never would have imagined and paved the way to friendships with food lovers from all over the globe.

So when I was approached to do a giveaway of Anthony’s debut graphic novel, Get Jiro, along with Jiro Dreams of Sushi, a DVD documentary I’d been dying to see, I could only marvel again at the lovely surprises that arrive in my inbox.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a documentary about the ultimate sushi chef, Jiro Ono, the ancient owner and head chef of Sukiyabashi Jiro, an underground Tokyo eatery which seats only ten people and has three Michelin stars.

Director David Gelb (A Vision of Blindness) has created an acclaimed documentary that charts the relentless pursuit of perfection by a master chef and the gifted son who waits to take over. It’s the kind of documentary I would watch over and over again, grateful for the chance to observe such skill up close.

Differently, Anthony’s novel, Get Jiro,is a satirical commentary on Western food culture set in a futuristic Los Angeles.

Put these two Jiro-named things together and you have a prize pack that is sure to please the fussiest of food lovers.

So what are you waiting for? Enter the competition below and you could win one of three Jiro packs.

Good luck!

Christina xx

Win one of three Jiro packs!

Thanks to Bill at Gryphon Entertainment, I have three (3) Jiro packs to giveaway containing a ‘Jiro Dreams of Sushi’ DVD and Anthony Bourdain’s graphic novel ‘Get Jiro’.

1. This competition is open to Australian residents only. 
2. Log in to enter using the entry form below and click on each task to view the instructions.
3. You will receive one (1) entry for each task you complete below. For example, if you leave a comment below you receive one entry. If you leave a comment and ‘like’ The Hungry Australian on Facebook you will receive two entries. If you leave a comment, ‘like’ The Hungry Australian on Facebook and subscribe to The Hungry Australian updates you will receive five entries.
4. For each of the tasks below click on the +1 Do It button to follow the entry instructions and record your entry. *** Don’t forget to do this for each task you complete otherwise your entry will NOT be counted! *** 
5. The more times you enter the greater your chances of winning.
6. Three lucky winners will be chosen at random.
7. Thanks for entering and good luck!

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Hello! I’m knee deep in client projects and Eat Drink Blog 3 conference organisation at the moment, working on getting everything done before I head to the Australian Almond Conference in the Barossa Valley on Wednesday, the ProBlogger Conference in Melbourne on Friday and Saturday and to Dubai next Friday for a one-week famil.

Thankfully, my dear friend Cheng Lei (a super dynamic Chinese-Australian television journalist working in Beijing) has come up with another mouth-watering guest post. Her last post was a glorious tribute to Singapore’s local breakfast culture. This post, however, is an ode of joy to Shandong’s fabulous street food, and in particular, the wonderful Bing. Enjoy!

The State of Bing

Autumn is the harvest season and on crisp fall mornings, the bounty at a Shandong street market is magnificent.  Crash-dieters, stay away.  Carb-freaks, rejoice.  Shandong, in eastern China, aside from being the birthplace of Confucius, is also the country’s grain belt and veggie basket.

The produce here is — like Shandong people and their appetites, extra large.  Eggplants like footballs.  Peaches you need both hands to hold.

Novelty-seekers, checkout the silkworm larvae (to be deep-fried into a crunchy appetiser) and hawthorn fruit (most often made into toffee fruit on a stick).

Thanks to the agricultural bent and abundance of wheat, the province is a state of Bing — the Chinese version of bread.  It is the sturdier cousin to the fluffy “bao” or steamed bun of the South that yum-cha afficionadoes are familiar with.

In Shandong, where being means bing, there is a bewildering array of the stuff — the sesame sprinkled shallots filled carpet sized “you bing”, “majiang shaobing” with their crunchy shells housing multiple soft folds of sesame paste, or the “jianbing guozi” — a popular crepe creation jammed with dough fritter, egg, chopped coriander and pickles. Elsewhere, Muslim vendors serve queues of breakfasters the piping hot “niurou huoshao” — a Chinese version of the “Reuben” sandwich consisting of oven-fresh crusty bread packed with tender stewed beef seeping delicious gravy.

Locals wash down their bing with fresh soymilk (BYOB — bring your own beans) and tofu soup, or a peppery broth called “hu la tang” or a bowl of “tian mo” — an unlikely sounding concotion made with peanuts, tofu, noodles and spinach.

Prices are dirt cheap, so come with pocket change.  Bring pocket-sized hand disinfectant if you’re that way inclined, hold your toilet urges, forget calories.  It’s a small price to pay for simple and honest street food that will be the stuff of hungry dreams for years to come.

Words and images by Cheng Lei. 

1) Dreaming of Dubai

A few weeks ago an email popped into my inbox inviting me on a one-week famil (media trip) to Dubai, hosted by Dubai Tourism and Emirates. My reaction went something like this: Wow. Yes. Definitely yes.

Why the invitation? Well, Emirates will begin thrice-weekly flights from Adelaide to Dubai in November, and daily flights from Adelaide from February next year. So they are keen to show Australian media and bloggers just what makes Dubai such an exciting holiday (or work) destination.

So on October 19 I’ll be flying business class to Dubai where I’ll spend a week checking out the city’s food, art and fashion (my trip happens to coincide with Dubai Fashion Week). I’m beyond excited and can’t wait to share my experience with you all so make sure you’re following me on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook for updates. A big thank you to my hosts.

2)  My new crush – the Nikon D600

Since November last year I’ve been shooting with a Panasonic G3, a compact micro four thirds camera, which has served me well. Now, in preparation for my upcoming trip to Dubai and various client projects, I’d been considering buying a faster lens for my G3 or upgrading my entire kit. So I chatted with multi-award winning pro photographer Grant Nowell — incidentally, a speaker at our upcoming Eat Drink Blog 3 conference — who had lots of great advice.

Grant suggested Nikon’s newly released D600, the lightest and most compact full-frame DSLR on the market today. So I did a lot of research and then had a very long play with the D600 at Camera House at the Adelaide Central Market before I decided to buy it. It’s early days yet but I am LOVING it so far. I also bought the kit lens — the 25-85mm — and the Nikon 60mm macro lens as well. My Pan G3 is now my back up.

3) Eat Drink Blog 3 photography & writing competitions

Australian food blogger? You MUST enter Eat Drink Blog 3’s photography and writing competitions.

There’s a swag of cool prizes up for grabs — including a KitchenAid Stand Mixer. a $1000 Visa card, Profiline baking sets, Dolce Gusto Melody coffee machine, and books from Harper Collins and Wakefield Press — plus you’ll be showered with glory if you win.

Both competitions close Monday October 8 so get your entries in quick.

4) Now that’s what I call a prawn cocktail!

I’ve blogged about the Spencer Gulf and West Coast Prawn Association before, when they hosted a lunch to celebrate their MSC certification of sustainability.

Now 80kg of their prawns will be used to create the Copper Coast Prawn Cocktail, Australia’s Biggest Prawn Cocktail, served during a special four-course dinner on Saturday October 6^th at the Wallaroo Marina Coopers Ale House. The dinner includes matched wines selected by Barossa Valley winemaker, Mark Jamieson. Tickets fare just $45 each and can be booked via the Wallaroo Marina Coopers Ale House on Tel: 08 8823 2488.

5) I heart Kamambo

My friend, Victoria Goodyear, is an award-winning filmmaker. I was actually a runner on her very first short film, shot back in the early 2000s when we were studying together.

She’s come a long way since then though, wining Best Australian Screenwriter at the 18th World of Women (WOW) Film Festival 2012. One of her more recent short films, the incredibly powerful and touching Kamambo (Butterfly), won the Panavision Best Graduate Diploma Production 2010 at the VCA Premiere Awards, Best Film at the Melbourne International Student Film Festival 2012 and Best Film voted by Audience at Comfortable Shorts 2012 in Melbourne. It’s been a finalist at international film festivals too numerous to mention here, too.

Kamambo is playing at the Mercury Cinema in Adelaide on Saturday 13 October at 7.30pm so if you fancy yourself a cinephile you won’t want to miss this gem about Papua New Guinean refugees trying to make a better life in Australia. Check out the details here.

6) Contemplating an Archean Land

My sister in law’s mum, Alvena Hall, is a very talented textile artist. She was a 2012 Waterhouse finalist and her vase sculpture made of lace, crafted to replicate charnia fossils uncovered in the Flinders Ranges, was the exhibition’s key media image.

Alvena now has a new, joint exhibition, Contemplating an Archean Land, at the Prospect Gallery this month. Details here.

7) A Fox at the Adelaide Central Market

I had the pleasure of meeting Richard Fox, a passionate, tall and very down to earth British food waste expert, on the Tasting Australia famil (media trip) back in May.

Richard is returning to Adelaide this month to hold an industry forum and conduct some cooking demonstrations for OzHarvest. Catch Richard and OzHarvest founder Ronni Kahn as they demonstrate what to do with leftovers to make them into something worth eating on Friday 19th October at the Adelaide Central Market demonstration kitchen. Sessions run from 12pm-2pm and 6-8pm. Details here.

8) Credit must go to…

A final shout out to my family, who will be looking after my kids this month while I visit Dubai and also Melbourne next week for the ProBlogger Conference. This year has been a big year of change for all of us and I want you to know how much I appreciate your help and support. I couldn’t be doing what I do without you. Thanks and big love, always.

Simon Bryant — a.k.a The Chef to Maggie Beer’s Cook on ABC’s successful TV series — has just compared me to a punk rocker and I kinda like it.

We’ve been talking about the rise of food blogging and food bloggers in general. Unlike some high-profile chefs, Simon is a big fan.

“I love you guys. You’re out there, writing about food, photographing it. You guys are like the punk rockers of today.”

Come again?

“Well, in the 60s and 70s, musicians that couldn’t get a look-in from the major labels just went ahead and put out their own albums. They didn’t wait for permission. They just went ahead and did it. Same thing happened with publishing. You don’t have to wait around for a (record or book) deal anymore – you can just do your own thing.”

He’s right, although I’ve never thought of it like this before.

I mention that there are certain circles who are a bit snobby about food bloggers and the fact that many lack formal qualifications.

“To say you have to be qualified to be a good cook or writer or photographer is ridiculous,” Simon scoffs. “Maggie Beer isn’t trained yet she could cook most of us under the table. And look at bloggers like What Katie Ate (Katie Quinn Davies’ blog). She does fantastic work.”

I’m glad Simon is so keen on food bloggers because he’s going to be speaking to a whole bunch of them — 80 in total — at the upcoming 3rd Australian Food Bloggers Conference that I am helping to organise. Simon is going to be talking about restaurants that use local and seasonal produce, the implications and what reviewers should consider when writing up their meal.

It’s a subject he knows a lot about as Simon was Executive Chef at the Hilton Adelaide for 10 years. Now, post The Cook and The Chef, he wears any number of hats, acting as patron or ambassador for various good causes (including Animal Welfare League SA, Animals Asia Foundation and the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers Market’s ‘Kids Club’) and working as a consulting chef, recipe developer and freelance writer. He also contributes a column to SA’s food magazine, Sumptuous).

Simon has been a champion for local and seasonal food and sustainability for the longest time. It’s a passion that has led him to set up his new company, Dirty Inc, which sells kabuli chickpeas, red nugget lentils, red nipper lentils and Tasmanian wakame (seaweed).

So how did it all come about, Simon?

“By accident,” he laughs. “Chefs often get access to unusual products that the public can’t buy. I came across these producers selling amazing, unusual chickpeas and lentils for export and I wanted to use them so I asked them what was the minimum amount that I would have to buy.”

And from such a casual question a new company was born.

If you haven’t already twigged, Simon is incredibly down-to earth and warm-hearted. His food – captured so beautifully in his new cookbook, Vegies — is the same, honest and unpretentious. It looks incredible, yes, but it looks like food you want to eat, not admire. Photographer Alan Benson has done a superb job, as has the design team.

I’ve made Simon’s Pickled Cabbage and Soybean Stir-Fry twice now — see the top of this post — and I love it. It’s such a simple dish but so breathtakingly good. In Adelaide, it’s known as a BBC – Beancurd, soyBeans and Cabbage – and is on the menu of many of our popular Gouger Street restaurants.

So how did the cookbook happen, Simon?

“It was Maggie Beer,” he says. “She’d been telling me for ages that I should write a cookbook but I just hadn’t got started. So one day she comes over, pulls out the laptop and sits me down to write it.”

How lucky Simon is to have such a great friend in his life.

Later, the talk turns to vegetables and I ask Simon — a long-time vegetarian — how to get my two kids to eat more vegies.

“Kids like eating food that they’ve grown,” he says. “Get them growing some vegies and they’ll eat them.”

He’s right. My kids love eating vegies picked from my parent’s garden or fruit picked directly from the tree or plant when we go fruit picking.

Simon Bryant has inspired me yet again. And I – and my kids – will eat better for it.

Vegies (Penguin/Lantern) is currently available at all good book stores.

Win Vegies by Simon Bryant!

Thanks to Simon and Penguin/Lantern, I have one (1) copy of Vegies to give away.

1. This competition is open to Australian residents only. 
2. Log in to enter using the entry form below and click on each task to view the instructions.
3. You will receive one (1) entry for each task you complete below. For example, if you leave a comment below you receive one entry. If you leave a comment and ‘like’ The Hungry Australian on Facebook you will receive two entries. If you leave a comment, ‘like’ The Hungry Australian on Facebook and subscribe to The Hungry Australian updates you will receive five entries.
4. For three (3) bonus entries, login to Pinterest, follow The Hungry Australian, pin the book cover above and then Pin two of the photos from this post. Once your Pinterest board is complete return here and click the +1 Do It option for the Pinterest Board Entry Option and then enter the link to your Pinterest board. If you aren’t currently signed up to Pinterest email me at info@hungryaustralian.com with ‘Pinterest please’ as the subject line and I can send you an invitation to join.
5. For each of the tasks below click on the +1 Do It button to follow the entry instructions and record your entry. *** Don’t forget to do this for each task you complete otherwise your entry will NOT be counted! *** 
6. The more times you enter the greater your chances of winning.
7. One lucky winner will be chosen at random.
8. Thanks for entering and good luck!

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Two words: Salted. Caramel.

Be still my beating heart.

Salted Caramel is the taste sensation that shows no sight of ending. Quite rightly so, for the combination of butter, sugar, syrup, salt and cream is simply sublime, prompting spontaneous groans from serious-minded men and women, who are helpless before its power.

I adore salted caramel but had never made it at home. So when Sweet Adventures’ Feeling Saucy blog hop rolled around, I knew my moment had come.

For those new readers, Sweet Adventures is a group of Aussie foodbloggers – 84th & 3rd, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, Delicieux, Dining With a Stud, and I, The Hungry Australian, who host a monthly, dessert-themed blog hop. You can visit the other blogs taking part in our hops via the thumbnails at the bottom of each post.

Previously, we have hosted: Berry Nice to Meet You (August 2012); Nuts About Sweets (July 2012); Sweet as Pie (June 2012); What’s Your Cup of Tea? (May 2012); Lemons (April 2012); Layer upon Layer (March 2012); Love at First Bite (February 2012); Death by Chocolate (January 2012); Festive Favourites (December 2011); and Great Australian Pavlova (November 2011).

This month KC at the Capers of the Kitchen Crusader is our lovely hostess so if you blog and love to cook check out her Feeling Saucy post and join in the fun. You have until Monday September 24th to join the hop.

To make this cake, I used this great chocolate cake recipe I created for AustralianFood.About.com and adapted this salted caramel sauce recipe by Nigella Lawson for Stylist Magazine.

Make it. Eat it.

You’ll weep, dance and sing.

And don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the post to check out all the other ‘Feeling Saucy’ entries. Enjoy!

Salted Caramel Sauce

 

Author: Christina Soong-Kroeger

Recipe type: Dessert

Prep time:  1 min

Cook time:  6 mins

Total time:  7 mins

Print

A sublime salted caramel sauce for pouring, dipping or bathing in

Ingredients

• 75 grams unsalted butter
• 100 grams raw caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons rice malt syrup
• 130 mls cream
• 1 tablespoon salt

Instructions

1. Put first three ingredients into a small saucepan and bring almost to the boil.
2. Immediately add the cream, stir and then simmer for three minutes.
3. Add salt and stir.
4. Turn off heat and leave to cool. The sauce will darken and thicken.
5. Store in the fridge but heat up before serving.

2.2.8

I read  a lot of food blogs. Some I visit for a minute or two, while others I can hardly bear to tear myself away. With the latter, I explore deeper and deeper into their archives, marvelling all the time at the quality and consistency of their work.

Sydney food blog, Cook Republic, is one of those blogs I can happily spend hours on. Sneh’s work has a striking aesthetic – it’s lovely but edgy, not pretty. And her photography is nothing short of spectacular.

Sneh is one of the judges for the upcoming Eat Drink Blog 3 photography competition open to all Australian food bloggers. So with the recent announcement of the photography competition I thought it was a great time to ask Sneh a few questions.

Sneh, you’re a modern renaissance woman. You do so many things – graphic and web design, recipe development, styling, photography – and you do them all so well. When people ask you what you do, how do you define yourself? 

A very interesting question, Christina, one that I have pondered over myself several times. I usually tell people that I am a designer and writer. I follow that up by saying that I also do photography and styling. But for the most part, I am first and foremost a designer.

Where did your passion for design come from? Who are your design heroes and your greatest influences?

I have been creating art since I was a child. Even when I was ten years old, I was doing pastel portraits, charcoal sketches and dry paint street art. My dad used to create fantastic portrait sketches and beautiful hand lettering. I remember going through his artwork, completely in awe of what was on the pages. I wanted to emulate him. When I was at uni, I discovered the wondrous world of digital art and web design. Walter Disney has always been my design hero for a very long time. Some of the best children’s illustrators from a long time ago to modern day have been my biggest design influences.

Continue reading →

Spring is here! Hurrah!

*Happy dance*

Spring has arrived not a moment too soon in Australia. I love the possibilities of this season, the all-day feeling that something good is just around the corner.

What am I saying? All sorts of good stuff is happening right now! Here’s my list of what’s making me happy at the moment.

1) Sweet Adventures feeling saucy bloghop

I love our monthly, Sweet Adventures’ dessert-themed bloghops. They’re a wonderful way to meet new food bloggers and collect all sorts of interesting new recipes. So if you blog and cook, you really should join us for September’s hop, Feeling Saucy. You could make a self-saucing pudding, a sticky date pudding with caramel sauce, a chocolate sauce to accompany vanilla ice cream or a berry pudding with berry sauce – we encourage you to be as creative as possible! Check out all the details over at The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, our hostess for this month.

2) Guest posting for JJ at 84th & 3rd

Isn’t it amazing that I can be in two places at once? Right now I’m here but I’m also guest posting for the lovely JJ at 84th & 3rd. Spooky, huh?  So head on over to JJ’s fabulous blog and check out my Delicious Power Crackles recipe (pictured above). JJ’s having the adventure of a lifetime around America at the moment but I’m sure she’d love to hear from you, too.

3) Goodies from the Adelaide Beauty Conference

On Saturday 1st September I was honoured to be part of a panel discussion on blogging at the Adelaide Beauty Conference. I had a great time comparing notes with the other panellists, Celeste and Melissa, and meeting a great bunch of local beauty bloggers. At the end of the day I left with four (!) goody bags containing over 30 products to try from some savvy Australian beauty companies. I’m currently using the awesome Instant Length Transplant Lengthening Kit from Mirenesse and it is indeed so much more than a mascara. I’m also loving A’kins’ Cellular Radiance Serum, Natio’s Colour Creme Gloss in Happy (how appropriate!), Sukin’s antioxidant eye cream and Kuu Konjac’s Pure Sponge.

4) Amazing almonds

I usually blog about my work projects on my portfolio site but I just had to share this one with you here. After all, it was The Hungry Australian that led directly to my new gig with the Australian Almond Board. I’m happy to let you know that I’ve been contracted by them to create a new recipe site showcasing almonds. It’s a tremendous opportunity and I’m excited to be working with them over the next 10 months on this project.

5) Opportunity International’s Food for Thought campaign in October

I’ve blogged before about the Food for Thought SA dinner happening soon at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre to raise funds for Opportunity International. What I didn’t know was that in October you can also hold your own event to raise funds and awareness for people living in poverty. Check out the details here.

6) The return of Almost Bourdain

Almost Bourdain, an incredible Sydney food blog authored by the talented Ellie is back! I was a big fan of Almost Bourdain when I started blogging and was sad and puzzled when she stopped blogging a year ago without an explanation. So I was delighted to learn today that Ellie is now back and sharing her recipes again. If you don’t know her blog go check it out right now.

7) Hanging with bloggers

Next month I’ll be heading to Melbourne for the ProBlogger Conference – if you’re going be sure to say hi. I’m excited about spending two days hearing from some fantastic speakers and getting to know bloggers from all over Australia.

8) The Hungry Australian takes a trip

I love, love, love to travel and it looks like I might be heading overseas next month on a food/art/fashion famil. It’s an incredibly exciting destination and somewhere I’ve never been before – I’ll let you know more as arrangements are confirmed.

Have a great September!

Christina xx

For this next post, I’m delighted to hand the reigns to my friend, Cheng Lei.

Lei is like me, half Aussie and half Chinese. I first met her in Shanghai in 2004 when we were both working there. Lei had gone to China as an accountant and ended up as the China Correspondent on CNBC, interviewing people like Bill Clinton as part of her everyday  — yawn, yawn — work.

Yep, the girl’s got game. She’s also blessed with warmth, wit, strength and intelligence. Actually, she’s one of my favourite people ever.

Lei is currently stationed in Singapore but is about to move back to China (Beijing) for her next gig. When I mentioned the idea of a guest post to her she couldn’t wait to share her love of Singapore’s breakfast scene as a fitting farewell. Enjoy! 

A Singapore Breakfast

Everything that I love about Singapore can be found at a market/hawker centre.

On weekend mornings, when breakfast doesn’t have to be my standard sandwich in the taxi going to work, I take the whole brood to Meiling Road Market, in the heart of Queenstown, one of Singapore’s earliest residential suburbs.

At eight in the morning, it is as local as it gets. Grannies in wheelchairs are drinking kopi o (black coffee with sugar) and mothers are queueing up for breakfast takeaway.

Downstairs is a clean and airy space where families hold stalls selling fresh produce.  There is even a vegetable stall called “Daddy Veggie” with a Chinese sign that says “dad plants, son sells”.

At Ah Soon’s fish ball stall, I pick up Yong Tau Foo (fish paste filled tofu and vegetables) for lunch later.

Do you know why so many Singaporeans talk about their favourite hawker center stalls?  It’s the memories and the comfort of consistency. It’s the fact you can grow up, move house, fall in and out of love, but know that in that same corner of the same building, the skinny uncle in the white shirt is still making these delicious (and healthy) fish treats that make noodle soup a slurping sensation.

They are so pretty, too, the red peppers and green lady fingers (okra), golden tofu puffs and purple eggplant — all set off by the snowy fish paste.  Cooking is super easy, too. You simply pop them in with noodles in boiling water/stock, wait till they float up and become plump, and serve them with your favourite dipping sauce.

Meanwhile, upstairs is a feast for the senses.  Hear the happy hum of chatter as orders are placed and delivered, the rhythmic chopping of shallots and coriander. Behold the fish balls jumping into steaming stock, the carrot cake (made with turnip) being expertly tossed, and the Prata (pancakes) being acrobatically flipped.

Elsewhere bunches of sugarcane are being pressed into yellow-green juice — the ultimate balm for a chilli-stung tongue. Drool at freshly steamed rice noodle rolls being smothered with sweet dark soy and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Be impressed by the old school food packaging too. Fried dough fritters come wrapped in brown paper to absorb oil.  Nasi lemak (coconut rice) are ensconced in fragrant Pandan leaves. Icy cold soy milk and grass jelly are ladled into plastic bags with sturdy string-ties.

The bill for all this hearty, homey grub?  $1.20 for cane juice.  $3 for duck noodles.  $0.8 for dough fritters.  $1.20 for 6 pieces of Yong Tau Foo. Scarcely enough to buy a Starbucks latte.

Food. Family. Fun.

I love Singapore.

(c) Words by Cheng Lei & photos by Wei.

Cheng Lei is a Chinese-Aussie reporter and mum of two who lives by the Chinese maxim “food is the god of life”.  She firmly believes you can learn everything about a place by visiting its fresh food markets.  

Following in the steps of Ed and Helen, who published lists of the Melbourne and Sydney food blogs, respectively, I decided it was time Adelaide had her turn.

So here it is, The Complete List of Adelaide Food & Wine Blogs (and blogs that include a food/wine section). Blog are organised firstly by the year of launch and then alphabetically.

Happy browsing!

Last updated: July 2014. There are currently 114 blogs on this list. 

2000

• Studio Notes by Shai Coggins

2005

• The Foodologist

2007

2008

2009

• Adelaide Thai Review
• D Bites
• Eating Adelaide
• Lonely Grape
• MonnieCakes
• South Australian Foodie
• Suzie Wong Creations
• Travelling in Mary Janes

2010

• Babycinos Rock
• Beyond the Scullery
• Hot Chocolate Dark Desires
• For the Love of Food
• Garden Theory
• Lambs Ears and Honey
• The Lonely Plate
• The Office Eater
• Peta Eats
• Slick Extra Virgin
• Spoonful of Sugar
• Sweet Ravioli
• Wine News from Tig Chandler

2011

• 103 Recipes
• 2B: Ethical Food
• A Bed of Strawberries
• Adelaide Food Critic
• Adelaide Foodies
• Anjeelarh
• Articulate Consumption
• Baristador Coffee
• Bec Likes to Bake
• Beer’d
• Burger Me Adelaide
• The Culinary Library
• Date Night
  
• Dirty Girl Kitchen
• Drunk.com
• Food Obsession
• Foodie Ling
• Fruit Salad and Mixed Veg (now a Sydney blog)
• Gninethree (now a Singapore blog)
• Healthie Mummie
• The Hungry Australian
• Little Black Blog
• Miss Teow
• A Kitchen for Friends
• The Little Cookbook
• The Luxury Pie
• More Than Churches
• The Natural Foodie
• Of the Kitten Kind
• A Parmi Lovers’ Guide to South Australian Pubs
• Pike on a Plate
• Playing House
• Radelaide Coffee
• She Cooks She Gardens
• Talking With Your Mouth Full
• That’s Adelaide
• Vino Review

2012

• Adelaide Food Central
• The Australian Dreamer
• A Big Pile of Nothing
• BonaFood – the Blog
• Burgasmic
• The Chopping Board
• Cooking Just for Me
• Cooking with Lucy
• The Copycat Chef
• Critically Blogging
• D.N.Leslie
• Don’t Call Me Katie
• Fraser Likes Adelaide Food
• Gluten-Free for Lunchboxes
• I Only Eat Desserts
• Liz Bakes Cakes
• Louis Fameli
• Mandarin Pie
• The Market Basket
• Octavia and Vicky
• Que Syrah
• Sherry Woo (now a Malaysian-based blog)
• The Smiling Foodie
• Tempting Tyson
• Terroir-ism
• Wined Up Adelaide

2013

• Apricot Tart
• The Berry Pants
• The Cat’s Pjyamas
• Charles and Ange
• Chocolate and Peanut Butter Oh My
• Cooking with Lucy
• Daisyum.com
• Deglutenous
• Eat Pray Love
• Furikak
• G’Day Souffle
• McFuzzlebutt’s Manchen
• My Kitchen Garden
• Polka Bakes
• Postcards to France
• Provendery
• What’s On The List
• Willunga Wino

2014

• The Best Piece
• Epicurean Epistles
• Food According to Bree
• Glamolicious
• Sam’s Kitchen

Adelaide Food and/or Wine Blogger?

If you’re a South Australian food or wine blogger and would like your blog added to this list, please comment below with your blog name, url and the year of launch.

All food and wine bloggers based in South Australia are invited to join the Adelaide Food Bloggers Group (ask to join the group on Facebook and then send me a direct message (DM) with your blog address to confirm your membership). We share foodie and food blogging tips, information and resources and host occassional meet-ups.

Billy Law is that guy from MasterChef Australia. Or that guy from popular Australian food/photography/travel blog, A Table for Two. Yes, that guy, the cool Asian-Australian with the cheeky grin, infectious energy and fondness for checked shirts.

But now Billy Law is also that guy who published a cookbook.

Have You Eaten? is Billy’s first book and it covers his culinary journey from growing up in Ipoh, Malaysia, to landing in Sydney, Australia and learning to cook. It’s a gorgeous book full of mouth-watering photography, eye-catching design and Billy’s trademark enthusiasm.

Like Billy, my father was born in Malaysia (Penang) and came to Australia to study. So Billy’s book was a poignant read for me as it featured so many great Western dishes as well as Malaysian favourites like Curry Laksa, Har Mee (Prawn Noodle Soup), Nasi Lemak (Coconut Rice) and Char Kway Teow (Fried Rice Noodles).

Curious to learn more about the man behind the book I recently asked Billy a few questions.

Congratulations on your first cookbook, Billy! How did it all come about? 

Thanks Christina! Remember I first met you earlier this year for Tasting Australia in Adelaide? I met my publisher Paul McNally exactly at the same event two years ago and became good friends. I didn’t tell anyone that I was on Masterchef last year, then he saw me on TV cooking up a storm and next thing I know I received an email from Paul asking me whether I’d be interested to write a cookbook with Hardie Grant. The rest is history. It all happened very fast; we started the project in Oct 2011 but then everything has to be put on hold during Christmas season. In Jan 2011, that’s when everything was going ahead in full swing and it took me five months to write, cook, test, photoshoot everything until is finished. It was hard work but rewarding, especially when I have to cook at least 15 recipes a week!

Continue reading →

Yesterday I received a long-awaited email from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) informing me that their updated Foodi app for Ipad is now available for download from the Apple store.

Why am I so excited? Well, because three of my recipes from The Hungry Australian appear on the Foodi app, alongside recipes by chefs like Maggie Beer, Simon Bryant, Matt Moran, Bill Granger and Poh Ling Yeow!

*pinches self*

I don’t know how I’ve managed to kept quiet about this for so long. I was approached by a producer at the ABC way back in February and it’s been a long six months waiting to see the final result.

Continue reading →

To kick off my new Meet A Food Lover series I’m proud to present this interview with Sydney blogger Karen from Citrus and Candy.

When I started blogging in mid 2011 Citrus and Candy was one of the first food blogs I stumbled across. Karen’s mouth-watering photography immediately caught my attention and I remember being struck by how artfully she used light and shade to create drama in her photographs.

Later, I met Karen at Eat Drink Blog 2, and remember feeling slightly awestruck in her presence. At dinner we discovered we shared a passion for Penang Asam Laksa. Now anyone who loves Penang Asam Laksa as much I do immediately qualifies for lao peng you or ‘old friend’ status with me.

So without further ado, let’s get up close and personal with Karen from Citrus and Candy!

*Drum roll*

Karen, you’re an Australian born in England to Malaysian parents. So what’s on the menu when you catch up with your family? Who cooks?

Me! My mother is a great cook but she’s lost the love for it and sees it as a chore now so she doesn’t make a lot of the dishes I grew up with (gawd I miss her salted fish fried rice!). So I tend to take over but I only ever make assam laksa, congee or nasi lemak. And when it comes to English food, it’s me again. But I still rely on her for bak kut teh, beef rendang and curries.

What are your top 5 Malaysian dishes?

 Only five? How to choose?!

1. Assam Laksa (see below) – a thick murky fishy noodle soup that’s sour with tamarind and lemongrass, spicy, sweet and salty. It’s fresh, aromatic, pungent and flavoursome.
2. Har Mee (Prawn Noodle Soup) – a spicy prawny bisque-like noodle soup with pork.
3. Malaysian Chicken Rice – rice cooked in chicken stock with a tinge of ginger and fried shallots and served with either super tender poached chicken, roast chicken or char siu and siu yoke (chinese bbq pork and crispy roasted pork belly pieces).
4. KL Hokkien Mee – fried egg noodles with a thick dark slurpy gravy flavoured with pork fat, cockles and sweet soy. A bib is recommended.
5. Apam Balik or Ban Jian Kuih – Malaysian peanut pancakes/crepes; can be either crispy and thin or thick and bready. Like a pancake omelette folded over a mound of ground peanuts, sugar and melted butter (sometimes cream corn but that’s a big no for me!).

With lots of food blogs focusing on healthy food – not that there’s anything wrong with that! – I love the fact that your blog celebrates the joys of fat, sugar and salt. What are your favourite dessert recipes?

Oh gosh it’s terrible right? Whenever I’m brainstorming or looking at recipes, I automatically start thinking, this needs more butter/caramel or how can I turn this into a chocolate dessert?

I always tell myself to eat better but I have to be realistic (or rather accept that I’m weak-willed) because there’s no way I could ever live without dessert and fried foods so it’s everything in moderation (well at least try).

My favourite desserts are tarte tatins, chocolate fondants or anything with brioche. Actually anything with gooey chocolate, crème patissiere, salted caramel and lots of butter is fine by me!

What are the kitchen items and gadgets you can’t live without?

I love my chinese cleavers like they’re my family. I never realised just how valuable having a super sharp cutting instrument was until I cooked in other kitchens and had to use their crappy dull knives to chop (from then on I vowed to always travel with my cleavers if I’m going to someone else’s kitchen!).

I also couldn’t live without my silicone spatula, Pyrex measuring jug, measuring spoons, digital scales and Kitchenaid mixer.

What are your favourite cookbooks and blogs?

The books that I’ve thumbed through most are Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum, Flour by Joanne Chang, Jamie’s Great Britain and Cooking For Friends by Gordon Ramsay.

For blogs, there are so many that I love that I can’t possibly list them all. Raspberri Cupcakes and Spicy Ice Cream are good friends of mine but they are just the most brilliant bakers and I’m always in awe of their work. I also adore Souvlaki For The Soul, David Lebovitz, Desserts For Breakfast, Bakers Royale and Call Me Cupcake.

Congratulations again for being a NuffNang Best Photography Blog Finalist for 2011. What was it like attending the awards ceremony in your home town of Malaysia? 

Thank you! It was a huge surprise but I was thrilled to fly home to KL! It was a bit of a surreal Alice-in-Wonderland kid of night with the whole glitzy Hollywood-esque ceremony and the buzz around some bloggers who are like celebrities over there.

The blogging industry is so huge, intense and competitive in Asia whereas it’s still a new thing in Australia and for most of us, it’s a thing we do quietly on the side. So it was a little bizarre but all in good fun. I’m just grateful that I was able to pop in a quick visit to my grandmother who I haven’t seen in 3 years (plus I couldn’t wait to get my fixes of iced milo and assam laksa!).

Karen, you are still using the same camera — a Canon EOS 1000D with a Canon EF 50mm F/1.8 lens — that you began blogging with in 2008. How did you teach yourself about photography? 

You should’ve seen me on the first day I got my Canon 1000D. I was so lost with all the buttons and I had no idea what anything meant so it took me 5 minutes of fiddling before I threw the DSLR aside and pouted for my old point-and-shoot. Luckily I forced myself to pick it back up!

I made sure to read up on digital photography and the technical stuff; from online tutorials on photography blogs and websites to checking out photography groups on Flickr (there’s a lot of good advice and tips to be had from other photographers). Then it was just practice practice practice. I took photos everywhere I could under different lighting situations; outside, inside, portraits, pets, dinners and low light.

How long did it take you to get to know your camera and feel happy about the photos on your blog?

It wasn’t until recently that I was happy with the photos but then again, I’m always striving for more so even though I’m happy now, I know that I can push myself to do better. I’m not even a perfectionist by nature but having great photos is a huge motivator and there’s always more to learn. Just learn the basics then practice your butt off (and consider each ugly photo a learning curve).

Are there any camera accessories that you think are essential? 

A diffuser and reflector are my best friends. Whether I’m using natural light through the glass door or artificial lamps, the light is always too harsh so a diffuser softens the blow and helps with over-exposure. If you don’t have one, translucent white fabric or tracing paper works too. And I need the reflector for bouncing light onto dark spots. This can either be a simple white cardboard, mirrors or (like me) one of those silver foil cake boards.

I also recommend a tripod if you have shaky hands and iffy light but personally, I don’t use it too often.

How do you get that beautiful lighting in your photos? Do you have any food photography tips you’d like to share? 

Natural lighting is the way to go. It shows off the food beautifully and it means less work tweaking with camera settings and photo editing. I like to do most of my photos in front of my big glass door around the late afternoon where the light is the softest and most diffused. Although lately I’ve been working with artificial light but I’m still a beginner with that.

As for the food photography tips, start with the fundamentals – ISO, exposure, aperture, shutter speed, light metering and white balance; how to adjust their settings on your camera quickly and knowing what each one does for your photos.

The other important thing is how to use the available light. This took a lot of trial and error for me because I don’t have an awesome studio, my house isn’t very well lit and I have ugly sponged yellow walls. But with a bit of diffusing, reflecting and white balance adjustment, I learned to co-operate with my house. I must’ve taken photos in all the rooms to figure out what worked best for me but everybody’s “studio” is different so you’ll have to see what works for you at your place.

You’re a proud Photoshop whore. Can you take us through the steps you’d typically go through when editing one of your photos? 

Oh I love, love Photoshop because frankly, photos never look as nice straight off the camera without some kind of post-processing. I don’t do anything fancy, just noise reduction, sharpen, brightness and contrast, white balance, colour boost and resizing. Sometimes I love playing around with filters.

What’s next for you Citrus and Candy?

A holiday will be nice! I still ache for Malaysia like crazy. But for now, I miss my blog and kitchen so I really ought to pay more attention to it.

All photographs (c) Karen from Citrus and Candy. Republished with permission. 

Bacon.

Did that get your attention?

If you’re a pork eater, bacon has to one of the ultimate brunch dishes.

This isn’t any old bacon either: this is Schulz Bacon from the Barossa Valley, officially Australia’s best bacon, as judged at the Sydney Royal Show.

*Gazes dreamily into the distance.*

Father’s Day is only a few days away in Australia — Sunday September 2nd to be exact — so I thought I’d share some recipe ideas in case you’re thinking of cooking your old man brunch.

On our Father’s Day Menu (in order of appearance):

• Schulz Bacon and Free-Range Eggs (sunny side up);
• Strawberries from the Adelaide Hills;
• Truffled mushrooms made with truffle paste by The Mushroom Man;
• Sourdough from Dough – served fresh and toasted;
• Bauernschinken (similar to prosciutto but smoked and lightly seasoned) from Barossa Fine Foods;
• Mini Truss Tomatoes;
• Nuage Blanc (White Cloud), a French-style soft cheese by B.-D. Farm Paris Creek;
• Wastonia Cheddar from Western Australia, a bitey cheddar with a wonderful melty mouth feel;
• Cheese Factory crackers from Say Cheese;
• Spanish Salami (a mildly seasoned salami) from Barossa Fine Foods;
• Tangelos, grapefruits and lemons from a friend’s garden;
• Coffee; and
• Juice.

Now if my dad were in his native Malaysia he’d be tucking into a Nasi Lemak (coconut rice) with extra curry and sambal, some fried noodles and maybe some dim sim that he bought at his local market for breakfast.

But after 40+ years in Australia he’s certainly learned to appreciate a Western-style breakfast and enjoys the lavishness of a spread like this. So the other day, my parents came around for a pre-Father’s Day brunch.

This brunch is all about timing, people. Don’t think you can just nonchalantly put the eggs on and then start casually plating the other bits and pieces. You don’t have to be militant but you do have to do things with some thought and planning to ensure that no one eats cold toast, or worst, cold bacon. (No!!!)

Luckily, most of this brunch should be served at room temperature (the bread, the butter, the cheese, the fruit, and the tomatoes) so these can be easily plated and set aside, leaving you to juggle just the eggs, bacon, mushrooms, toast, coffee and tea.

Do remember to have the oven on low so you can keep the eggs, bacon, toast or mushrooms warm while you’re finishing up.

Brunch is such a wonderful start to the day. It’s one of the easiest and most relaxed ways I know to entertain friends with kids.

The wonderful spread of food and drink on the table always brings a smile to people’s faces, too.

Happy Father’s Day, dad. We love you.

Bacon, Eggs & Truffled Mushrooms for A Father's Day Brunch

 

Author: Christina Soong-Kroeger

Recipe type: Breakfast

Prep time:  5 mins

Cook time:  10 mins

Total time:  15 mins

Print

Make your dad brunch for Father's Day - it'll make him happy!

Ingredients

Bacon & Eggs

• 1-2 slices of bacon per person
• 1 egg per person

Truffled Mushrooms

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 350 grams button mushrooms, brushed and quartered
• 2 teaspoons truffle paste
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Parsley

Instructions

Bacon & Eggs

1. Pre-heat oven to 100 degrees Celsius and place an oven-proof plate in it.
2. Place bacon in a cold, non-stick fry pan and then place over medium heat. Cook, turning regularly, until the meat is nicely charring and the fat is crisp and brown.
3. Meanwhile, fry the eggs one at a time in a bilini pan. As the eggs are done, slide them onto the warmed plate in the oven to keep warm so you can serve everyone at the same time.

Truffled Mushrooms

1. Heat up a non-stick fry pan over a medium heat and then melt the butter.
2. Add the garlic and stir continuously with a wooden spoon for about 30 seconds before adding the mushrooms.
3. Continue cooking, stirring regularly until mushrooms are cooked through and the edges are starting to crisp.
4. Add two teaspoons truffle paste, and then grate fresh pepper over the mushrooms. Taste and then add salt as desired.
5. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley and serve immediately.

2.2.6

KitchenAid Giveaway!!

Thanks to Filtered Media I have two KitchenAid packs to give away for Father’s Day.

Each pack contains one KitchenAid artisan 2-slice toaster (valued at $169) and one KitchenAid artisan coffee maker (valued at $199).

The packs come in black or red. Here is an example of each prize below. Aren’t they stunning? You can imagine what they’d look like in the other colour if you squint.

Give Away Rules:

1. This competition is open to Australian residents only. 
2. Log in to enter using the entry form below and click on each task to view the instructions.
3. You will receive one (1) entry for each task you complete below. For example, if you leave a comment below you receive one entry. If you leave a comment and ‘like’ The Hungry Australian on Facebook you will receive two entries. If you leave a comment, ‘like’ The Hungry Australian on Facebook and follow me on Twitter you will receive three entries. You get the drift!
4. For three (3) bonus entries, login to Pinterest, follow The Hungry Australian, pin the two KitchenAid prize photos above and then Pin at least two of the photos from this post. Once your Pinterest board is complete return here and click the +1 Do It option for the Pinterest Board Entry Option and then enter the link to your Pinterest board. If you aren’t currently signed up to Pinterest email me at info@hungryaustralian.com with ‘Pinterest please’ as the subject line and I can send you an invitation to join.
5. For each of the tasks below click on the +1 Do It button to follow the entry instructions and record your entry. *** Don’t forget to do this for each task you complete otherwise your entry will NOT be counted! *** 
6. The more times you enter the greater your chances of winning.
7. Two lucky winners will be chosen at random.
8. Thanks for entering and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’d like to welcome my friend, Kerina, as my guest for this next post.

Kerina and I met in a Philosophy 1A lecture at the University of Adelaide and bonded over a shared love of indie music and girl bands that could rock out. The next year we both started writing for On Dit, the Adelaide University students’ newspaper. We were appointed Music Editors with another friend in 1995, and then elected Editors in 1996. It was when we were laying out the weekly, 80-page A3 newspaper that Kerina realised that she loved design more than words; she later retrained as a graphic designer. 

Ten months ago, Kerina and her fiancé welcomed a baby boy to their family and I blogged about the importance of feeding new parents.

Here’s what Kerina has to share about her son learning how to eat. 

Imagine, for a moment, an alien lands on your doorstep.

As part of explaining life on our humble planet, you introduce them to our concept of food. They’ve never felt the joy of sinking their teeth/gums/tentacles into a ripe peach. They’ve never winced at the sourness of lemon, or experienced the fire of chilli. They don’t know that bananas taste better peeled.

How do you begin to introduce the vast scope of flavours and textures for the first time, to somone for whom food is a new concept?

Ten months ago we welcomed R into our family, and five months ago we started on this journey together.

Tasting those first single-ingredient purees was a surprising experience for both of us. As adults, we take for granted the taste of most fresh produce: we see the carrot on our plate, and know how it tastes before it reaches our mouth. The expectation is well-established.

Continue reading →

Bakers are made, not born.

Don’t believe me?

A few years ago, my cakes (and my photography) looked like this:

Notice how this cake is leaning precariously to one side and the very runny icing is pooling in the middle?

*Cringe*

At least my daughter looks darling in her cute fairy-outfit-over-pyjamas look. (Wait, did that comment just turn me into a Mommy Blogger? lol)

The photograph says it all: I used to SUCK as a baker.

But over the last couple of years my baking has improved a lot. Over the last year it’s improved dramatically.

Why?

Mostly, I’ve made more of an effort. I studied cookbooks and food blogs, bought some great kitchen gadgets (a revolving cake stand, an offset spatula, assorted cake pans and cooling racks), and kept the pantry stocked with baking essentials (flour, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, vanilla, coconut, and icing sugar) so I could bake whenever the urge arose.

But credit must also go to my latest kitchen accessory and my serious new crush, the KitchenAid Artistan Stand Mixer.

A few months ago, I received an email from the good folk at Filtered Media about KitchenAid. I responded and not long after a red KitchenAid Artistan Stand Mixer arrived at my home for a test drive.

Now I’d never had a stand mixer before and had always been curious about Kitchenaid’s stand mixers. Yes, the looked gorgeous, and came in variety of fantastic colours but what was the fascination with them all about? Were they really that good? Or was it a case of style over substance?

Over the next few months I used the KitchenAid Artistan Stand Mixer regularly, up to four times a week. I made cakes, meringues,  pavlovas,  custards, ice creams, biscuits, Swiss meringue buttercream and slices.

It was a revelation.

I’m an impatient person so holding a hand mixer for 10 minutes to cream some eggs and sugar together is not my idea of fun. I usually manage around three minutes before getting bored and chucking the mixture in the pan. This might be OK for some cakes but for others it was a disaster.

So I love being able to pop the ingredients into the mixing bowl and then potter around the kitchen while the KitchenAid Artistan Stand Mixer worked its magic.

Moreover, the cakes it produces are impressive.

Check out the height of this meringue on this Quince Meringue Pie.

I made the exact same cake two days earlier with my hand mixer and it didn’t look anything like that.

Now have a look at the Dark Chocolate & Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream Cake  I made for my daughter’s sixth birthday party.

Yes, I know the Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream has separated a little – I was up late prepping and couldn’t be bothered waiting for the butter to chill. Still, it’s not a bad looking cake and it tasted magnificent.

Perhaps you’re more into trifles?

This was a berry trifle I made for a commissioned e-book. It was a real hit at a family dinner.

Speaking of hits, do you like cake pops?

These were some delightful and not-too-sweet cake pops that I made for my daughter’s party.

Perhaps you’d prefer something a little healthier?

That was my Berry Pistachio Tart with a wholemeal base I made for Sweet Adventures’ Nuts about Nuts bloghop.

Now it’s true that most of these cakes could have been made equally well with a hand mixer, especially for more patient types. But would you have actually baked them or just thought about it and decided it was too hard most of the time?

But even if you are are a motivated and patient baker, it’s when you’re baking cakes like sponges that the KitchenAid Artistan Stand Mixer really earns its keep.

Check out this Instagram of a Victoria Sponge with Berries I made for About.com.

The cake mixture needs to be beaten for a  full 10 minutes: it’s the only way to get that fabulous height.

I’d never made a Sponge Cake before because I didn’t feel like I had 10 minutes of my life to spare to hold a hand mixer. But now I just chuck all the ingredients into the KitchenAid Artistan Stand Mixer and it does the heavy lifting for me.

*Sniffs. Wipes tear.*

I love it and I can’t imagine my life without it now.

What about you, dear reader? Do you  use a hand mixer or stand mixer? And how does it affect your baking?

*** Upcoming Giveaway ***

Do you love KitchenAid, too? Next week I’ll be giving away two packs containing a KitchenAid Artisan 2-slice Toaster plus a KitchenAid Artisan Coffee Maker for Father’s Day! Don’t miss your chance to win this fantastic prize.

With thanks to Lisa McLean and Sarah Broome at Filtered Media.