All posts by Christina Soong

We love to reminisce about the amazing meals we’ve enjoyed but what about the meals that we wish we’d never eaten? Here are my top 5 meal fails:

5. Fritz sandwich with ant sauce

One day when I was in primary school, my mum made me a fritz sandwich for lunch as a treat. Unfortunately some ants got into my lunchbox somehow so when I took a bite I got a mouthful of formic acid. Bleaurgh.

4 Chicken Caesar salad with a side of awkward

In the late 90s I went out for lunch with a female colleague to a cafe near our work place. After I’d ordered a Chicken Caesar Salad, I realised that the guy I’d made out with the previous week was sitting three tables over with another female colleague and they were on a date. That was a fun lunch.

3 Vanilla milkshake surprise

When I visited New York with a friend in 2002, we decided we had to eat at Tom’s Restaurant which we knew from its regular appearances on Seinfield. I ordered a full breakfast while my friend ordered a vanilla milkshake. When she got to the bottom of her ‘shake she discovered a long, black curly hair – I’m talking 10cms long (relaxed) and 15cm long (extended). It was utterly, utterly revolting.

2 Degustation date disaster

To celebrate an important anniversary I once booked a romantic dinner at a fancy restaurant. Unfortunately my date and I started fighting during the first course of our eight course degustation and it only went downhill from there. We should have called time and walked out but degustation is like a roller-coaster ride — once you get on, you can’t get off — so we stuck it out to the bitter end. We were surrounded by loved-up couples, too, which made our dining experience all the more excruciating.

1 Champagne seafood buffet tsunami

When I lived in Shanghai my partner and I would occasionally meet a group of friends for a completely over the top, 4-hour champagne seafood brunch at a 5-star hotel. One day I must have eaten a bad oyster because half an hour after leaving the hotel I was struck with the worst case of food poisoning I’ve ever had – think full-scale horror movie and then take it up a notch. I suffered PTMS (Post Traumatic Meal Syndrome) for months afterwards.

Have you had any eating experiences you’d rather forget? Tell me about your worst dining experiences below.

A few days ago the kids and I got caught in a heavy shower as we went for a walk and scooter ride along the beach foreshore. As we hurried back to the car, my three year old fell over and hurt his knee so I carried him the rest of the way while trying not to slip on the wet paving stones. All in all, it was fairly grim and it seemed to fit the general theme of the last week.

Ten days ago, the father of one of my BFFs (Best Friends Forever) was discovered by his wife to have passed away peacefully in his sleep. His death was unexpected and I wept for my friend when I heard the news. Her father was someone I’d known since I was 12 and he and his wife attended my wedding.

The funeral was held last Tuesday. During the service the celebrant related stories of T’s humour, his generosity and his thoughtfulness. She told of his great love for his grandchildren and his unwavering conviction that they were the most beautiful and smartest children in the world. She read tributes from his wife and daughter that brought more tears to my eyes.

When you lose someone important, the hole they leave in your life cannot be filled by anyone else. You miss them, and no one else will do.

The celebrant comforted the assembled mourners by explaining that people live on in the hearts of those who loved them forever. She said that when someone close to us leaves us we have a choice: we can choose to celebrate their life or we can focus on our pain. We can think about our loss or treasure all that they have left behind.

I agree with her, of course, but when a loss is recent the pain is raw and immense. At this stage, children are a marvellous distraction – they have needs that need to be met no matter how you’re feeling. Later on, when our grief and longing for the past becomes almost unbearable we have our memories, photographs and cherished keepsakes to help comfort us.

My friend is heading back to Sydney today so on Saturday I hosted a lunch with my two BFFs and their families, my friend’s mother and my parents. As we’ve all lived in different cities for quite some time it was the first time everyone had sat down together like this in many, many years.

I wanted to cook a comforting yet special lunch. For appetizers I made a tray filled with bowls full of marinated Kalamata olives, dried goji and mixed berries, roasted peanuts from Malaysia, King Island Camembert, water crackers, dolmades and Barossa Fine Foods ham.

People helped themselves to drinks (cloudy apple juice, old-fashioned lemonade, white wine and water with fresh lime slices) and picked at the appetizers while I prepared the beans and salad and my friend prepared the garlic bread. Our kids ran and crawled all over the house and garden, alternately playing and fighting. The Adelaide crew had only met the Sydney crew that week but they were already operating like a street gang, with all the usual tensions, leadership struggles and faction-forming.

For mains I served roast pork loin with crackling (made by my dad), penne with home-made pasta sauce, caramelised roasted pumpkin (made by my dad), green beans with EVOO, garlic, salt + lemon, blood orange and pomegranate salad (made with normal oranges as blood oranges were unavailable), and garlic bread.

With so many people  — 8 adults, 5 kids and 1 baby — the adults had lunch in the dining room while we put the kids (aged 2, 3, 3, 5 and 6) in the lounge room around the coffee table. One of my friends served the kids their food while I continued plating up for the adults.

“Are they alright?” I asked her when she came back into the dining room.

“It’s like Lord of the Flies out there,” she dead-panned.

For dessert we had crème caramel (made by my mum) served with these moscato stewed quinces and biscuits and chocolates. Quinces are such a lovely fruit. Raw, they have a subtle sweet fragrance like a pear — quinces are in the same family as pears and apples — but as they cook their fragrance intensifies. If I could create a perfume that replicated the smell of cooking quinces I would make millions. You heard it first here, people.

After such a sad week, it was lovely to spend some quality time together. It was a nice reminder that good can come out of any situation, no matter how bad the circumstances.

By the way, after we got caught in the rain, something unexpected happened. As I drove home I noticed the most magnificent golden sun peeking through the thick bank of grey clouds and shining down onto the slate-grey sea. It was the most stunning sight, and one we wouldn’t have seen if not for the rain.

Life is a journey through light and shade. Move gracefully through the dark times, create joyful moments, hug your loved ones and celebrate the beauty to be found all around you.

Ingredients – Moscato Quinces

• 1 bottle moscato (750mls)
• 1/2 whole lemon, unwaxed if possible
• 1  cup water
• 3 quinces, peeled, cored and cut into small pieces
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract (or 1 vanilla bean pod, split lengthwise)
• 50mls rice malt syrup

Ingredients – Stewed Quinces (no alcohol)

• 4 cups water
• 1/2 whole lemon, unwaxed if possible
• 3 quinces, peeled, cored and cut into small pieces
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract (or 1 vanilla bean pod, split lengthwise)
• 200mls rice malt syrup

This alcohol-free recipe is inspired by David Lebovitz.

Method

• For both recipes above, place all ingredients into a medium saucepan and bring to the boil.
• Cover and simmer over low heat for two hours, stirring occasionally.
• Serve with crème caramel, vanilla ice cream or Greek honey and yoghurt. Alternatively you could pile the quinces on top of a custard tart or use them in a crumble. I also like eating stewed quinces with muesli and yoghurt for breakfast.

Notes

• When choosing quinces, look for fruit with smooth, unblemished skins.
• Quinces are an exceptionally hard fruit so use your sharpest knife and best peeler on them and watch your fingers.
• Moscato is the Italian word for muscat, which are the grapes used in this light, slightly fizzy, super fragrant white wine.  I used Peter Lehmanns’ Princess Moscato.

More Quince Recipes

• Quince Meringue Pie
• Red Quince, Halloumi & Rye

When my mother arrived in Australia in the 60s as a high school student from Hong Kong she didn’t know how to boil water.

It was her German/Australian landlady, Mrs Andersen (pictured below with her husband), who taught her how to cook.

One of our favourite family recipes — Stir-Fried Pork and Beans — is actually a variation of a recipe Mrs Andersen taught my mother. Apparently Mrs Andersen learned about Chinese cooking techniques and recipes from cookbooks. It’s funny to think that my mother was taught how to cook Chinese food by a German/Australian but that’s how it was.

This Braised Pork and Beans recipe, that I developed recently for Bertolli Olive Oil, is a variation on my mother’s recipe, which in turn was a variation of Mrs Andersen’s. I’ve fancied it up a little, added quite a lot of ginger and used dark soy sauce instead of light soy sauce but in essence it is similar. It’s rich and comforting, which makes it perfect for those cooler nights when the sun falls quickly and it’s dark in the late afternoon.

Mrs Andersen died before I was born so I don’t remember her unfortunately.  However, I think she’d be quietly pleased to know that she is remembered so fondly, and that her cooking is now inspiring a new generation of cooks. That’s how powerful a legacy the food that we cook can leave.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 litre water
• 1 kilogram boneless pork ribs or pork belly
• 2 tablespoons Bertolli extra light olive oil
• 2.5 inch piece ginger, peeled and sliced into 0.5cm pieces
• 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 1 star anise
• 1 stick cassia bark (substitute with a cinnamon stick)
• 1 cup water
• 400 grams trimmed green beans, cut into 2 inch pieces
• Salt to taste

METHOD

• Bring water to boil in a medium saucepan and then drop pork in. Cook for about six minutes and then remove from water and rinse in fresh water. Cut pork into one inch pieces
• Heat up a wok until smoking and add two tablespoons Bertolli extra light olive oil. Add one tablespoon white sugar and stir until completely dissolved.
• Add pork and ginger pieces and cook over medium-high flame, stirring regularly, for around 3 minutes until browning nicely.
• Mix in Shaoxing wine, dark soy sauce, star anise, cassia/cinnamon, and one cup water.
• You can then either: 1) Turn heat down to low, cover with a lid and cook for one hour and 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then mix in the beans and cook for a further 10 minutes; or 2) Place pork into a pressure cooker and cook for nine minutes. Then unlock the pressure cooker, mix in the beans and then cook pork and beans for ten minutes as a normal pot (not a pressure cooker); or 3) Place pork and beans into a slow cooker and cook for 7-8 hours.
• Taste and add ½-1 teaspoon salt if required before serving.

 Note: I was commissioned by Bertolli to make this recipe but I have not been compensated to write this post. I just really like this recipe and wanted to share it here, too. 

A few weeks ago I decided to throw an afternoon tea. Between work and family commitments I’ve been a neglectful friend lately so I thought it was a good way to catch up with a whole lot of girlfriends at once.

In the week leading up to my afternoon tea I was chuffed to learn that I was a finalist in the Best Australian Blogs 2013 competition. Later, I was amazed to hear that I’d won the Outstanding Use of Photography award for my post on Dubai’s markets and souks. Thank you Australian Writers’ Centre – I’m really feeling the love.

So the afternoon tea today felt like an impromptu celebration.

Let’s have a look at all the dishes one by one, shall we? We’ll start with savoury.

Cheese Board

A Cheese Platter with Tasmanian Heritage Double Brie, King Island Cheddar, Gorgonzola Dolce, wafers and a fig and almond paste.  Click here for tips on putting together a cheese board.

Cold Meat Platter

Here I’ve chosen four different cold meats — Hamwurst, Mortadella, Paprika Lyoner and Bierschinken with Pistachio Nuts — from Standom.

Beetroot Hummus

This gorgeous looking dip was made by Nicola who blended chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, beetroot and salt together. The beetroot gives the hummus a sweet flavour while the cucumber adds some refreshing crunch.

Vietnamese King Prawn Cold Rolls

My mum and our friend Ruta came over a bit earlier to help out and ending up making my plate of rolls for me – thank you! I’ll blog Vietnamese Cold Rolls properly at some point but for this dish you need King prawns split length-wise, cold vermicelli rice noodles, cucumber, carrot, mint, coriander, basil and rice paper wrappers. I made the sauce with a mixture of satay sauce, hoisin sauce, sweet chilli sauce, rice wine vinegar and lime juice.

Vietnamese Pork Rolls

I’ve blogged a Vietnamese Pork Bun recipe before so head over there if you want to know how to make my cocktail party version of Vietnamese Pork Rolls.

Smoked Salmon Dip & Corn Relish Dip

This Smoked Salmon Dip is super easy and so much better than the stuff you buy in tubs. Simply blend 100 grams smoked salmon, 200 grams softened cream cheese, juice of half a lemon, 2 tablespoons water and 1/2 teaspoon drained capers. The Corn Relish Dip is even simpler than the salmon. Simply blend a jar of corn relish with a block of softened cream cheese. Easy, right?

Sweet & Salty Popcorn

This stuff is like crack. Once you start eating it you don’t ever want to stop.

Cherry Cake

This Cherry Cake was made by Ruta. Sadly I didn’t get to try it but I’ve eaten Ruta’s food countless times over the years and she’s an excellent cook so I’m sure it was delicious.

Cream Puffs

When my mum asked me what she should make for today I said, “cream puffs. Make a tower of cream puffs with toffee like you did for my birthday when I was little.”

My mother laughed. “I bought that cake. Oh Christina, you’re so naive.”

Thanks mum – another childhood illusion shattered. These cream puffs she did make were awfully nice though.

Friands

My lovely sister in law made these delicious friands. They were such a great size – perfect for an afternoon tea party.

Lemon Slice

This gluten-free, no-bake lemon slice was made by Kate. It was so good that I have told Kate she has to blog it soon or there will be trouble.

UPATED: Kate has blogged the lemon slice recipe. Thanks Kate!

Mini Pavlovas

Celeste made these pink and white beauties. Well, technically, she assembled them but she’s put them together very nicely. Hey, I’ve just realised that the garnish is parsley not mint – Celeste, what kind of crazy fusion food game are you playing?

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes & Raspberry Cupcakes

Tash is a fantastic baker who is currently studying patisserie at Tafe and food studies at University. She brought along these fantastic Chocolate Guinness cupcakes, Raspberry Cupcakes and Gluten Free Orange Cupcakes. Thanks Tash!

All three cupcakes were topped with a celestial vanilla bean cream cheese icing.

To accompany the food, we drank delicious Strawberry Champagne Cocktails made by Megan, sangria and champagne. Megan’s cocktail was so good I’m going to blog it separately.

There was so much food left at the end of the day that I sent everyone home with a plate of food.

Life usually rushes by at a frantic pace so it was a lovely to spend a few hours eating, drinking and talking with friends. I need to do this more often.

Thanks for a lovely afternoon, chums xx

George Ujvary is a multi-tasker with an appetite for the delicious things in life. He is managing director of his family business, Olga’s Fine Foods, a small-goods and meat manufacturer, sits on the board of FoodSA, South Australia’s peak industry body for the food and beverage industry, and blogs at The Foodologist, one of Adelaide’s earliest food blogs. He also has a Masters in Gastronomy from Le Cordon Bleu and studied the Le Cordon Bleu Masters of Arts (Gastronomy) at Adelaide University.

Everybody, meet George!

George, have you always known that you would work in the food industry?

I’ve grown up around the food industry with parents first running a restaurant and then running a food business so it was always a possibility that I would enter the food industry. As a teen, I worked in the family business delivering products and working in the factory during my school and University breaks but it wasn’t until I finished my doctorate at Oxford that I made the decision to join the family business and consequently the food industry. The decision to come back to not only to the family food business but also the South Australian food industry and Adelaide itself is one that I don’t regret.

As a food manufacturer, what are some of your biggest challenges?

The food industry is an increasingly competitive marketplace with high levels of competition due to relatively low barriers to entry. As a result, firms need to be able to constantly improve their operational efficiency whilst maintaining product quality and a strong brand in order to be profitable in the long term. Similarly, industries across the board (as well as residential sectors) have also faced significant increases in the cost of power and other utilities which increases the costs of doing business.

What is most important though in particular for South Australia, is that food businesses whilst continuing to promote their own brands, also promote the benefits of buying local food. Buying your food from local producers not only makes good sense from the perspective of quality but also promotes the local economy so eating local is win/win for all South Australians.

This has been evident recently in the media coverage given to Spring Gully who recently went into administration. Thankfully, there has so far been strong support by consumers and we as an industry hope that the firm will be able to trade out of the difficulties it has encountered.

This example, however, highlights the need for consumers to continue to support local food companies on an ongoing basis.The ability of Australia to feed itself needs to be seen not only for its commercial value but also as an ongoing national strategic asset. If we let this ability diminish, it takes a long time to rebuild as animals, crops and expertise cannot be replaced overnight.

Australia has the potential to see tremendous growth in its food output as the world’s population continues to expand, however if firms are uncertain or unable to finance growth or innovation, we will lose much more than we will gain simply through gaining short term price advantages through importing which is currently more viable due to the strong Australian dollar.

You’re also on the board of Food SA.What are some of the things you have done or hope to do for SA food producers and manufacturers?

It is a privilege to serve on the board of FoodSA with a highly proactive and extremely competent CEO and board members representing some of South Australia’s most prominent food businesses. Our aims are to promote South Australian food to local consumers both in South Australia and interstate as well as abroad.

The organisation serves its members by engaging various stakeholders to ensure that the voice of the South Australian food industry is heard in the most positive way. Every time a South Australian food company wins an award or praise either locally or globally, the entire profile of every food business in South Australia is lifted just a little bit. It is my aim to ensure that whenever or wherever this happens, as many people know about it as possible.

In the coming months, I am looking forward to participating in a food mission to Hong Kong and Shanghai with FoodSA not only to help promote the message regarding South Australian foods but also to gain a better understanding about some of the fastest growing market opportunities for food companies that currently exist.

Similarly, it is important in light of recent events that have been made public regarding our food industry that local firms are ‘front of mind’ when consumers choose what goes on to their plate. This is in part where the local blogging community can help, by highlighting our growers, producers, manufacturers, retails outlets, restaurants, chefs and anyone else that supports the South Australian food industry. Thankfully, South Australia is blessed with a great number of talented brands, people and outlets that there are more than enough great stories to go around.

The recent Spring Gully response in the media and in particular, social media has demonstrated how this kind of support can make a difference and this kind of difference will ultimately go some way to help making the South Australian food industry more vibrant and stronger as we make consumers aware of the great food that is right on our doorstep.

Indeed. However writing about food is not as simple as some might think. What were the three most important things you learned from the Gastronomy course at Adelaide University?

Learning to write and in particular write about food from a group of wonderful teachers including Barbara Santich gave me the ability to verbalise my thoughts and feelings about food in a logical and more articulate manner but also within the perspective of the broader picture of food history and food culture. Through studying both the historical aspects of food and gaining a broader understanding of food culture in current society, it is much easier to understand why some things are happening in todays food scene and hopefully get a greater understanding of potentially lies ahead.

I would highly recommend that all food writing aspirants get a copy of Barbara’s book, Looking for Flavour as the content and the style are in my opinion everything a food writer should aspire to. Additionally, an insight on food history both locally such as through Michael Symons’ One Continuous Picnic and a general knowledge of food history will help aspiring gastronomes to understand why we currently eat the way we eat and why certain foods and food rituals have evolved the way in which they have. Another eye opener for me was the structure of writing a recipe which can be done in a number of ways but which is of great importance.

Finally, like with all writing, the use of words to evoke feelings and even texture, smell and taste were skills that doing this course really helped me to improve and the sheer joy of reading Brillat Savarin’s Physiology of Taste or Somerset Maugham’s Three Fat Women of Antibes really demonstrated the ability of a good writer to engage the reader. Another book I adore is Pauline Nguyen’s Secrets of the Red Lantern which is so much more than just a cookbook and is beautifully written.

You do most of your writing over at your blog, The Foodologist, which has been running since 2005. What do you most enjoy blogging about?

The blog has really existed to serve as a sounding board of my feelings and thoughts about food. When I started the blog, I was alone in South Australia for a couple of years and looked either to people like Billy Law from A Table for Two and Helen Yee from Grab your Fork as well as Chez Pim and a number of others. Now, there are plenty of local Adelaide blogs and I am learning more about blogging from local bloggers than I did before from all the other blogs.

Since doing the gastronomy course, I have become more structured in my writing, sticking mainly to recipes, reviews (of which I have now really tried to more steer towards a description of my personal experiences of a place rather than a means of providing judgement) and the odd piece of gastronomic writing.

It is hard to describe what aspects I enjoy the most and each post is written about the topic or style of article I feel like writing at the time rather than as a result of sticking to a programme or formula. For a fairly long period of time, I really enjoyed posting reviews but since I started trying to be more healthy in the last couple of years, I have been eating out a lot less and cooking more at home so writing recipes has been more enjoyable in recent times. I have also taken a fairly keen interest in trying to document as many family recipes as possible to maintain the strong food culture that exists within my family. My background is Hungarian and Estonian and my wife is of Spanish and Indian descent so as a family we have a rich food culture from which to draw on. Therefore, there is every chance that you will start to see more recipes on the blog.

As a result of my food studies, I get sent a lot of food books so I quite enjoying reviewing cookbooks. Whilst many are what you would consider more conventional in nature, I was pleased to receive via an academic colleague a book on cooking with testicles which I was most happy to review!

I imagine they are an acquired taste! Now what would you cook for a special family celebration? 

Family meals are a BIG thing in both my own and my parents and in-laws houses and the type of food eaten depends either on the type of celebration and who we are visiting. For a family meal, we typically eat a lot of Spanish, Indian, Hungarian and Estonian foods. Also, because I work in the meat industry, we eat a lot of BBQ’s. I also love American style BBQ’s with things such as smoked Beef Brisket, Pulled Pork, Pork Ribs and Beer Can Chicken.

During the festive season such as Christmas and Easter, we will typically eat a baked ham or turkey but will also include Scandinavian style potato salads in which will feature plenty of dill, sour cream and pickled herring or Estonian jellied meats known as Sult. For desserts at these meals, we will have Hungarian Beigli and Kifli. New Years Eve is usually the same meal every year which will start with Oysters, then Lobster Thermidor and finished with Crepe Suzette and the only drink served will be Champagne.

When we cook for friends, I like to cook out of some of my books. I love making David Chang’s sous vide Eggs with grilled Asparagus and Miso Butter and I have loved some of the meals I have eaten by Luke Mangan at glass and Tze Khaw of the Adelaide Convention Centre where I will just try to make a dish the way I remember it. Another great meal was when we cooked a six course meal for friends from Mrs A.B. Marshall’s Book of Cookery (The ‘original’ Martha Stewart!) in honour of our house which was built around the time of the book’s release. Other times, I will just try to demonstrate an idea.

The most important thing for me though with a family meal is the sharing of the table. Whilst we might cook some great food at times, sometimes, the best meals might be a simple steak and salad so long as it is shared with the people you love that makes all the difference.

I couldn’t agree more. Now what are some of your favourite places to eat in Adelaide and what do you order at each place?

Unless it is somewhere new that we are trying for the first time, we tend to go to different places for specific dishes.

We love the pho and especially the quail (photo at the top) at Pho Ba Ria 2 and also the Salt and Pepper Squid and Steamed Barramundi with Ginger and Shallots at BBQ City. Alternatively, I love the burgers at Pearl’s Diner and Burger Theory whilst my daughter loves the Shredded Duck Soup at BBQ City and the waffles from La Waffle. Other times, I don’t care what I’m eating so long as its accompanied by a few beers at either The Exeter or The Austral.

My favourite Italian restaurant without a doubt is Enzo’s. We’ve had great meals at Press, Magill Estate, Auge and so many other places. Adelaide is really spoilt for choice when it comes to food. I think we are little ‘light on’ with regards to fine dining but the lower to mid-range is second to none and couldn’t exist without a public that knows their food, expects the best and understands value.

All photos courtesy George Ujvary. 

A community pop up event showcasing organic, fair-trade artisan produce, The Breakfast Rave was created at the end of 2011 by Barossa local Cherie. I first heard about it some months ago via Facebook and had put it on my mental To Do list. So when my friend Kirsty posted that she was going to be helping out at the April event, I decided it was a perfect time to check it out.

So a few weekends ago the kids and I got up bright and early and headed out to the Barossa. Australia’s most famous wine region is about an hour from our house and I always enjoy the drive.

The kids had eaten a light breakfast but I hadn’t so by the time we arrived I was famished. The Breakfast Rave pops up at a different Barossa location each month, which is only revealed days before the event. This time, the event was held in the lovely grounds of Charles Cimicky Wines in the hills of Lyndoch. Previous Raves have been held at Chateau Tanunda, Yalumba Winery, Langmeil Winery, the old Angaston Railway Station, Seppeltsfield and Collingrove Homestead.

After navigating the drive, we arrived at a delightful picnic area.

The Breakfast Rave officially kicked off at 8:30am so I’d thought we was doing quite well to arrive by 9:15am considering the 1-hour drive. But even at this hour the queues were enormous. Dang! I should have realised that Barossa folk are likely to get up at the crack of dawn. The kids and I looked at each other sadly and my stomach growled.

I wanted to check out the trading table (people bring along excess produce or plants and then leave them on the table to trade for something else) but decided that we better starting lining up straight away. While we queued, we took in our surroundings.

The Breakfast Rave team had picked a lovely shady spot, overlooking the vines.

When I told my three year old that we were going to visit a ‘farm’ in the ‘country’ he had asked me if there were going to be animals there. So I was glad to be able to introduce him to this nice fella, one of many dogs at the Rave.

And here’s a real-life farm boy with a hat. Or maybe he’s a city slicker doing the country look. I can’t really tell.

Available to buy on the day was The Breakfast Rave branded organic tea and coffee beans, organic Panela sugar, organic GF whole flour mix, organic hot chocolate, and organic raw cacao, along with tea by Scullery Made Tea and coffee by Barossa Coffee Roasters.

Here’s a little (unedited) video I shot on the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11rwuyGNb3E

As you can see, I have a long way to go with video! But we all have to start somewhere, right?

After about twenty minutes we made it to the front of the queue. Hurrah!

We ordered one of each of the hot dishes available – Spanish style slow cooked beans with free range egg, biodynamic yoghurt and organic sourdough bread ($12) and rösti with free range egg, sweetcorn and avocado salsa, biodynamic yoghurt and organic sourdough ($12).

The nice lady taking our order told us apologetically that it would be a half hour wait for the hot food so I ordered a blackstrap molasses cookie ($4) and GF raw cocoa brownie ($4) to tide us over.

A glimpse at our food to come…

While we waited for our friends to arrive we found a rock to perch our drinks on: I’d bought two green smoothies ($7) and two real lemonades ($4) plus a Sumatran soy latte ($4) was on its way. My kids loved the mild flavoured lemonade (sweetened with organic Palena sugar) but found the green smoothies too bitter for their liking. It was an undeniably healthy smoothie but perhaps an extra apple or pear might have made it more palatable for younger tastebuds.

My son got stuck into his blackstrap molasses cookie while my daughter made short work of her GF raw cocoa brownie. The cookie was a great, tasty vegan option for my little guy, who can’t tolerate dairy or eggs, while the brownie was rich and chocolatey with a texture somewhere between a brownie and a muffin.

Finally my name was called and I claimed our food with a sigh of relief. The stewed mixed beans were bursting with smoked paprika and oregano flavours and went together marvellously with the nicely cooked poached egg, coriander and yoghurt. The potato rösti was similarly good, especially when eaten with the mild avocado corn salsa, but my kids found the rösti too peppery for their liking.

Our friends arrived and braved the queues for coffee and cake while my kids took off to play on the nearby rocks.

An event like this requires an enormous amount of work. So what possessed the organisers to create The Breakfast Rave? It is an undeniably great way to promote local producers while bringing people to the region who might not otherwise visit but is that the full story? Perhaps this charmingly handwritten sign will explain all.

Indeed. All the plates, cutlery and cups at The Breakfast Rave are either recyclable or compostable. By the time we leave this crate is three quarters full.

The long wait notwithstanding, the Rave had a lovely relaxed atmosphere.

Two very decent local musicians played cool and crowd-pleasing acoustic tunes as family and friends listened, relaxed and caught up.

I managed to grab a few words with Kirsty before we left and she explained that the organisers had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of people that’d turned up this morning. They’d catered for more people than attended the last Rave, and had double the number of volunteers to help out, but an estimated extra 200 people had turned up, possibly due to a listing in the Barossa Vintage Festival programme. So the organisers had done their best to cater for the crowds but the long waits were unavoidable and there just wasn’t enough of some items to go around. So we were lucky that we arrived when we did.

Kudos to Cherie and the rest of the team who volunteer their time and efforts to make The Breakfast Rave come to life each month – they’ve created something really special here. Yes, they’ll need more hands on deck as the event continues to grow but from what I’ve seen I’m almost certain that the things that make The Breakfast Rave so special — the personal touches, the community focus and the genuine warmth of the people involved — won’t get lost in this.

The Breakfast Rave
Monthly pop up breakfast event
Various locations in the Barossa Valley
Like them on Facebook to keep up with new events

Two Minute Noodles with Broccolini and Almonds styled and photographed for Amazing Almonds.

What is food styling? Is it the artful placing of a garnish, the careful drizzle of some sauce, the precise placement of food to best display its charms? Well yes, it’s all those things but it’s so, so much more, too.

Denise Vivaldo Food Intensive

A few weeks ago I attended a two-day food styling workshop at Sydney Cooking School with visiting American super food stylist Denise Vivaldo. Denise has been in the food styling business for 30 years  and has an enormous amount of knowledge about both food styling techniques and the business of food styling. She’s down to earth and funny, too, so the days passed quickly and happily.

It was the first time such a comprehensive food styling workshop had been held in Australia and I felt fortunate to be one of only a dozen attendees able to attend. There were some Sydney-siders of course, but people had also travelled from interstate (like myself), Singapore and New Zealand to attend the workshop. Some attendees were already working successfully in the food/media/advertising industries while others hoped the course would help kick-start their food styling careers.

I was a food blogger before branching out into paid recipe development, food styling and food photography work. So learning about the world of commercial food styling, and in particular, food styling for advertising and packaging, was fascinating to me.

In this world, the food has but one job: to look as appetising as it possibly can for the camera. A good photo can change the fortunes of a company so how the food tastes, or indeed, if it is even edible, is unimportant.

To achieve the desired ‘hero’ shot, commercial food stylists use a whole range of tools and tricks to enhance and manipulate food. I was pleased to learn that some of the techniques I’d figured out myself were staple devices but a lot of the techniques commonly used when styling food for television, packaging or advertising went far beyond my usual styling methods. The trend in Australian food styling is for a very natural look, too, and this has undoubtedly influenced my own technique.

Hamburger and chips styled by Denise Vivaldo. Photograph by Dario Milano

Over the course of the two day workshop we learned to style a whole range of common dishes and drinks, including burgers, ice cream, dessert, soup noodles, and a roast chicken.

Roast chicken styled by Denise Vivaldo. Photograph by Dario Milano

Boy, that roast chicken looks enticingly good, doesn’t it? Perfectly browned and seasoned – I want to sink my teeth into a juicy leg right now. Unfortunately eating this chicken would give me at best a very sore tummy as it’s only been cooked for 10 minutes. Underneath that seemingly perfectly roasted exterior the chicken is raw.

Commercial food stylists often use undercooked or semi-raw meat in food photography because it looks better than fully-cooked food. If you fully cook a chicken (or indeed any type of meat), the meat shrinks and dries out so you lose the plump and juicy look of it. Have a look next time you’re roasting a chicken and you’ll see what I mean. So Denise has devised a method to emulate roasted meat that looks just like the real thing.

After Denise worked her magic on a chicken we were invited to give it a go ourselves.

This is my finished chicken below. What do you think?

Over lunch one of the ladies in my workshop, Anna brought up the question of ethics of food styling. Like me, Anna favours a natural approach to food styling and she wondered whether creating a heavily stylised version of a dish for photography was somehow dishonest.

In my (biased) opinion? No. Assuming a recipe had been thoroughly tested all the stylist is doing is making the food look its best for the shot. That’s the job of a food stylist, just like it’s the job of a make up artist, hair dresser and clothes & accessories stylist to make a model look his or her best for a fashion shoot.

Having said that, every recipe I’ve ever made for this blog has been edible. I cook, style and shoot the food, and then we eat it. But as a blogger I have the luxury to scrap a blog shoot if I’m not happy with the photos. As a freelancer with a busy schedule I don’t usually have this option – I have to be able to deliver the goods. This is where commercial food styling techniques can be extremely helpful if not invaluable.

Check out this video made by McDonalds to answer a customer’s question: “Why does your food look different to the food on the ads?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Business of Food Styling

I still have a long way to go in terms of my food styling technique but I have picked up a few things about the business of food styling and and am more than happy to share them. So with thanks to Denise and the other food stylists and photographers who have generously contributed to this post, here are my top tips and resources.

Brownies styled by Sally Parker. Photograph by Gerry Colley.

12 Tips for New, Emerging and Aspiring Food Stylists

Hello! Sorry it’s been so quiet here this past week – I was working on a few different client projects and then I developed some kind of low-grade virus that made me want to sleep all day. Anyway, it’s been a while since I did these monthly favourite posts but I’m re-introducing them as of now. So here’s the list of things making me happy this month.

1) Custard apples

I shot four dessert recipes for the 2013 Australian Custards Apples campaign last week (two of my recipes plus two recipes by MasterChef winner and all-round nice guy Adam Liaw) so my house was full of this gorgeous tropical fruit (see above). If you’ve never eaten custard apples before now is the time to get your hands on some.

2) Heated hair rollers

I went out to dinner the other night with Shai and Celeste and when I walked into the restaurant they said I looked very “va va voom.” Admittedly, I had a rather nice dress on but it was actually my new sexy curls that were attracting all the attention. Ladies, if you have mid-long hair and don’t have a set of heated rollers, run to the shops and buy some now. You won’t regret it.

3) Kale

I have this weird aversion to trendy things. I read the first Harry Potter two years after it came out and it took me even longer to read the Twilight novels (I think you need to be under 17 to really appreciate them). I still haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey but I’ve heard the writing is fairly atrocious so I’m in no rush. Anyway, to get to the point of this paragraph, I cooked kale for the first time a few weekends ago and I loved it’s strong, slightly bitter taste and thickly layered texture. I feel like Thelma in Thelma and Louise when she says, “now I understand what all the fuss is about!” after spending a night with J. D. (Brad Pitt). I cooked a warm purple kale salad with chorizo and almonds for Amazing Almonds the other day and a chorizo, chicken, white bean and green kale soup for our dinner.

4) Fantastic Mr Fox

The other night I watched a film about a fox (George Clooney) who wants to pull off one last robbery behind the back of his trusting wife (Meryl Streep). Based on the book by Roald Dahl, it’s so beautifully animated and so clever – I laughed out loud several times. It’s not really a movie for small kids as there are some scary bits but older kids will love its black humour. Check it out.

5) Divine Vegan Desserts

If you read my recent J’s Chocolate Banana Cake post you’d know that my son was recently diagnosed with an intolerance to dairy and egg. Well, it turns out my daughter also has this problem, too, which means a massive re-think of our diet. Luckily, Wakefield Press recently sent me Lisa Fabry’s Divine Vegan Desserts and it’s full of helpful hints and interesting recipes to try.

6) Denim shirt

I haven’t worn denim on my upper body since the mid 90s but I freaking love this slim-cut shirt and have been living in it lately. I wear it with my black J Brand skinny jeans and ballet flats for running around or my hot pink Diane Von Furstenberg skirt and heels when I’m going out.

7) Crepe pan by Profiline

I make pancakes at least once a week in my regular frypan so when Profiline offered to send me a crepe pan I was keen to see if it made any difference. The Profiline crepe pan is very well-made and incredibly light and thin. It produced beautiful crepes for me so it’s well worth a look if you make crepes or pancakes regularly.

8) Manfretto Tripod

I’ve used tripods in the past when shooting but they were flimsy, awkward devices and I soon gave up, reverting to only hand-held photography. Then a few weeks ago I bought a Manfretto 190X ProB, an incredibly well made and rock-solid tripod. Now I set up a complete scene and use the viewfinder on my tripod mounted camera to check that everything is in the best position before I start shooting. I then use the tripod to take both portrait and landscape shots of the scene before unclipping my camera (a Nikon D600) and shooting the rest hand-held. It’s like having an extra pair of hands in the studio and I can’t imagine shooting without it now.

9) Family

It’s been a challenging month on the personal front but my family have humbled me once again by the way they’ve pulled together and gone above and beyond to help out. You guys are my heroes and I love you to bits.

EDIT:

A Most Unexpected Surprise

My original post ended there. But yesterday I found out that The Hungry Australian is one of 25 finalists in the Best Australian Blogs 2013 competition run by the Australian Writers’ Centre. Yep, this humble little blog is one of five finalists in the lifestyle/hobby section, which covers travel, food and beverages, health, fashion, craft and interior design.

Wow. *pinches self*

Of all the amazing things that have happened since I started this blog this would have to be the most unbelievable. THANK YOU! *happy dance*

According to the Random House website, 1,122 blogs entered in this year’s competition and five finalists were announced in each of the competition categories: Lifestyle (408 entries), Personal/Parenting (350 entries), Business (84 entries), Commentary (119 entries) and Words/Writing (161 entries). Head over to the Australian Writers’ Centre website to learn more about the judging process.

When I began blogging in mid 2011 I saw it as a way of flexing my writing muscle, which had gotten stiff and clumsy out of disuse. Since then I’ve spent countless hours writing and blogging, all the time wondering if my words will have any impact at all. Now I still have a long way to go with The Hungry Australian but this nomination feel like recognition that I’m heading in the right direction at least. So I’m off to celebrate with a large bowl of noodles now!

Thank you for reading. You guys inspire me every day.

Christina xx

Each time before I go food shopping I write out a list – it’s the only way I can possibly remember what I’ve run out of and what I need to buy for client and blog projects. 50% of the time I end up leaving this list at home so I end up wandering the market muttering to myself as I try to remember all the things I wrote down.

However my shopping list is merely the starting point. By the time I arrive home I have approximately double the things I had on my list having been seduced by some luscious looking produce during my shopping expedition.

Today I was in my local greengrocers when I spotted some blood oranges and pomegranates that begged me to take them home. So I did.

I had to take a vegetable dish to dinner at my parent’s house tonight so I took the pomegranates and blood oranges and turned them into this simple salad, enhancing the the sweetness and tartness of the pomegranates with a simple balsamic vinegar and honey dressing. We ate this salad tonight with a tomato pasta and roast meat but it would go brilliantly with grilled lamb, falafel or a seafood pasta, too.

I’ll have to remember that next time I go shopping. Or not, as the case may be. Sometimes spontaneity can be a beautiful thing.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 x 120 gram mixed lettuce leaves
• 3 blood oranges, peeled and sliced
• Seeds from 1 pomegranate
• 1 shallot, chopped into small pieces
• 2 tablespoons EVOO
• 1 teaspoon top quality red wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon honey
• Salt & pepper to taste

METHOD

• Arrange lettuce, orange, pomegranate and shallots on a plate.
• Make a dressing by whisking the EVOO, vinegar, honey & salt and pepper and drizzle over the top.
• Serve immediately.

** Looking for another blood orange recipe? Check out my Blood Oranges with Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Flakes. **

J is my three year old son. He makes my heart fill to overflowing with his sunny nature, cheeky grin, outrageous demands and obsession with cars and helicopters. So you can imagine how concerned I was when he stopped gaining weight last year.

J has always been a skinny boy with a small appetite but over the last six months he ate less and less. I tried everything, from cooking his favourite foods to bribery to feeding him while he watched TV or played in the bath. It was both frustrating and stressful – I come from a long line of greedy eaters so his disinterest in food just didn’t make sense to me.

After numerous visits to a paediatrician who kept telling me he was just a small boy I had him tested for food intolerances. There is a family history of food allergies and intolerances and J had suffered full-body eczema as a baby as a result of them. Over time he had seemed to grow out of those intolerances but maybe I’d been mistaken or perhaps he had developed new ones?

The report came back and it confirmed my suspicions. J had multiple food intolerances, including dairy, eggs, oats, cashews, hazelnuts, olive, peanut, pistachio, soy beans and lemons. While some of these weren’t a problem others were as they were foods he ate everyday: he drank milk morning and night and I cooked him pancakes made with eggs, milk and butter four times a week.

A day after I cut out all the blacklisted foods J started eating a normal size children’s meal as opposed to his usual minute portions. He started asking for food between meals. I was ecstatic.

Learning how to feed J without so many of his usual foods on the menu has been a challenge.  I’ve been substituting his usual fare with a whole range of different foods (I’ll blog about them in an upcoming post if you’re interested) as I work out how to feed my son safely. But it’s hard to explain food tolerances to a three year old – he gets upset when told he can’t have his regular ice cream or soft boiled egg and toast for breakfast.

However, of all the foods he can’t eat anymore J misses chocolate most of all. So the other day I came up with this Chocolate Banana Cake for him. It’s chocolately and dense but not overly sweet, with a texture somewhere between a mud cake and a butter cake. Yes, it does have some sugar in the scant amount of icing included to satisfy my kids’ obsession with sweet toppings but otherwise it’s pretty healthy.

While cake is not on his everyday menu, J has been steadily gaining weight since I started him on his new diet. When he wakes up in the morning he asks for breakfast and he tells me that he’s hungry at least a couple of times a day. My son is eating, finally, and I couldn’t be happier.

INGREDIENTS – CAKE

• 300 grams plain flour (approx 2 cups)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 150 mls rice milk
• 125 grams dairy-free margarine, melted and then cooled slightly (I use the original Nuttlex)
• 2 egg replacers (you can substitute 2 eggs)
• 150mls rice malt syrup, heated a little so runny (you can substitute 125grams sifted brown sugar if you like)
• 3 bananas, peeled and blended

INGREDIENTS – ICING

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon cocoa
• 3 tablespoons dairy-free margarine, melted and then cooled slightly (I use Nuttlex)
• 1-2 tablespoons rice milk

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius and spray a cake pan with baking spray.
• Sift dry ingredients in a large bowl.
• In a smaller bowl, mix milk, margarine and egg replacers/eggs until combined.
• Add milk mixture, rice malt syrup and blended banans to dry mixture and mix until thoroughly combined.
• Pour into cake pan and then bake in the oven for 50 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out dry.
• Leave to cool for 10 minutes in pan and then turn out on a baking rack to cool.
• To make icing, sift icing sugar and cocoa together in a small bowl and then add melted butter and rice milk. Stir thoroughly until combined and then ice the cooled cake (an offset spatula is ideal). If you also want to ice the sides of the cake then make up double the icing recipe.

If there was such a thing as food royalty in Australia then Charmaine Solomon would surely be in its inner circle. Like Stephanie Alexander, Maggie Beer and Margaret Fulton, Charmaine has influenced the eating habits and home cooking of generations of Australians as a food writer and recipe developer. My mother cooked from Charmaine’s cookbooks back in the 80s and I have continued cooking her recipes today – see my post on her The Complete Asian Cookbook. 

Charmaine’s cookbook, The Curry Cookbook, published in 1980, was the first cookbook I ever read. Unlike most cookbooks of that period, which were devoid of personality, Charmaine and her jazz musician husband Reuben had commented on each recipe with their tips and preferences. It was that glimpse of the people behind the cookbook that I found so interesting and made the recipes so much more meaningful.

More recently, Charmaine has launched an excellent range of curry pastes and condiments. They’re staples in my pantry and fridge for the days I want to cook a tasty meal but don’t have time to cook from scratch. So I was thrilled when Charmaine agreed to share her story and some of her favourite foods with us today. Everybody, meet Charmaine!

Charmaine, how important is food in Sri Lankan culture? As a child, what was your favourite Sri Lankan dish?

Christina, food is very significant in Sri Lankan culture, with special dishes representing particular events. Kiribath (milk rice), which is eaten for breakfast on the first day of the month, most notably on New Year’s Day (the first day of the first month) was and still is a sentimental favourite. It’s delicious and very easy to prepare – see the Sri Lanka chapter of my Complete Asian Cookbook for the recipe.

If you were cooking for a family celebration what would you cook?

Stringhoppers make a meal a special occasion for me. I can’t believe the rigmarole I went through squeezing the rice flour dough through a brass press with tiny holes to make the thread like noodle strands that are extruded in overlapping circles onto bamboo mats to make the lacy pancakes, which would then be steamed. Turning the handle of the press while rotating it over the bamboo mats is quite a challenge – a little like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. These days stringhoppers are made by machine, so I order them from a specialist caterer and serve them with homemade spicy scrambled eggs, seeni sambol and chicken curry.

You worked as journalist before you moved to Australia in 1959. How useful was that training and experience for your later career?

I’m sure that was part of the reason I was asked to join the staff of Woman’s Day. I remember my news editor’s motto was “tell it like it is”. This helped me develop an easy-to-follow style of writing when it came to explaining recipes. I imagined that the recipe had to be straightforward enough for even my self-confessed non-cooking friend, Sylvia, to follow. As a result, the style spoke to many other novice cooks. It’s so nice to meet people who tell me that I taught them to cook.

You learned to cook after you moved to Australia. What was your first impressions of Australian food and what was the first Australian dish you remember cooking?

You have to remember that as a young wife and mother in Sri Lanka I never had to cook. I lived in a five star hotel (in those days) with my husband, Reuben, who was the leader of the hotel’s orchestra, and an ayah (nanny) for each child. We had meals in the international restaurant. Before I married, I lived with my maiden aunts, and servants did the cooking and cleaning. It was quite a steep learning curve coming to Australia. Plus we weren’t wealthy immigrants, as the government restricted the amount of money we were permitted to take out of the country at the time we left Ceylon. I seem to recall we ate a lot of mince. And pasta was easy to cook. Australian food was pretty dull back then. I am not a fan of overcooked vegetables.

I understand you got your start in recipe development when you won a White Wings baking competition in Women’s Day and attracted the attention of Margaret Fulton. Can you tell us what happened next?

Actually, I won second prize. When Margaret found out that I worked as a journalist in Sri Lanka she asked if I would join her staff. They were nine of the happiest years of my life. During that time I was offered the opportunity to write my first cookbook when Margaret’s publisher saw me typing her manuscript. Maybe he’d heard about my curry dinner parties, but he asked if I’d like to write a book. I joked that I only worked to a deadline. He replied that I had one, if I wanted it. That was how it all began.

As a young woman, did you ever imagine that you would make food your career?

No. As a young woman I never needed to cook, though I had an interest in food. All I’d ever cooked before I came to Australia were frivolities – cakes and candies. In Australia I taught myself to cook as a diversion during the longs nights I waited for Reuben to come home from nightclub gigs. The children were asleep and there was no TV. With his encouragement, I became quite a decent cook. I found that I loved cooking. But even more, I loved his praise. It’s a good thing he was so appreciative!

Your first book, The South East Asian Cookbook was published in 1972 and you’ve published 30 other books since, many of them international award winners. For people who are keen to try your recipes but don’t know where to start, which three books would you recommend and why? Is there any particular book that you are especially fond of?

I think for a collection of iconic recipes from Asia and the Asian subcontinent, you can’t go past The Complete Asian Cookbook, recently revised. It has all the recipes from the original edition as well as some new ones. I also think if you are inquisitive about food ingredients, the Encyclopaedia of Asian Food is a must have. I enjoy Charmaine Solomon’s Family Recipes for sentimental reasons … though it is no longer in print … so perhaps the Vegetarian Cookbook would be my number three.

You also produce an excellent, award-winning line of pastes, marinades and chutneys. How did this come about and what are your favourite products?

I was teaching classes at various cooking schools and heard my pupils say the curries they made at home never tasted as good as mine. When I asked didn’t they use the curry paste recipes from the book, I discovered that, to save time, many were using store bought pastes instead of making their own from scratch. Reuben saw this as an opportunity to let more people enjoy authentic curries and the range just took off. Hard to pick a favourite. I go through phases. Rendang, Thai Red and Green, Butter Chicken … and if you don’t like it hot, the Moroccan Spice Blend.

You’ve accomplished so many things – what has been your proudest achievement?

My family. I am proud of them not so much for what they have accomplished as for the kind of people they are.

What’s next for you?

I am 82, have four children and five grandchildren. I love to spend time with them. I like it when my children and my grandchildren cook for me. I like to read, watch old movies, catch up with friends and I enjoy playing scrabble. It’s really nice to get emails and letters from people who still enjoy cooking my recipes or want to thank me for changing the way they eat. I feel very fortunate to have been able do something I love for so long and, through it, to give pleasure to others.

Photo credits: top and third photos from The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon. Author photograph by Jennifer J. Richards. All other photos courtesy Charmaine Solomon. Thanks to Nina Harris.

I like desserts that double up as snacks and meals. This means I can eat them anytime of the day or night without someone raising their eyebrows and saying, “you’re eating THAT for breakfast?” Begone oh killers of joy and self-appointed diet police – you are not welcome in my home.

Ticking all the necessary dessert-friendly boxes are these cute Rhubarb Apple Yoghurt Pots. Yes, you could eat them as a dessert, but you could equally enjoy them for breakfast or morning or afternoon tea.

Rhubarb is such a pretty coloured vegetable. I’d never eaten it before until I was working in Leeds, Yorkshire, in the early 2000s and a lovely colleague made me a rhubarb crumble for dessert one night. Seeing how simple it was to prepare and cook encouraged me to try cooking with it myself.

This dish couldn’t be simpler to prepare. You simply stew the fruit, let it cool and then top with vanilla yoghurt and some toasted muesli. Too easy. You can make these up in advance and keep them covered in the fridge until you’re ready to use them (just leave off the muesli until the last moment so it doesn’t get soggy).

That’s dessert done. And breakfast. And morning and afternoon tea. Now give yourself a pat on the back for being such a clever multi-tasker.

INGREDIENTS

• 600 grams apples, cored, peeled and chopped into medium pieces
• 500 grams rhubarb, trimmed and chopped into medium pieces
• 1/2 cup rice malt syrup or 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 kilogram tub top quality vanilla yoghurt
• 250 grams toasted muesli

METHOD

• Place apples, rhubarb water and chosen sweetener in a saucepan and bring to the boil. 
• Lower flame and cook over a low-medium heat for about 10-12 minutes. Leave to cool.
• To assemble, spoon fruit into a cup and then add yoghurt and garnish with toasted muesli.

Serves 6.

Recently, I attended the media launch of the inaugural Adelaide Food & Wine Festival, a not for profit, community led and focused festival running from 6-14 April. With the festival almost upon us, I chatted with the woman behind the festival, Amanda James-Pritchard, about why she started the festival, some of the events on offer and what makes a great pie floater. 

Everybody, meet Amanda!

Amanda, tell us about yourself. When did you arrive in Adelaide and what brought you here?

I arrived in Adelaide in 2008. It was my fiancé Glenn James, a winemaker who brought me here from Melbourne. I decided to give up my communications job at Foster’s to join him across the border.  I was excited to make the move from Melbourne and especially to explore the nearby wine regions and the City for myself.

Your company, Kooki PR, has a lot of food clients. What are some of the jobs you’ve most enjoyed? 

I am so lucky to work with some of the best food producers across the country and especially to work with people who are willing to do things that might be a little risky or left of centre (i.e. kooki). One of my favourite campaigns of late would have to be the “BEARDED Bottle” campaign we did with Oliver’s Taranga. We produced a video and made a bottle that actually had a beard! It was all about celebrating the Oliver family’s bearded heritage. Some other top people I work with include Pepe Saya (the butter master) and Phil Lamb at Spring Bay Mussels, a true gentleman of the seafood industry – we created a campaign called “MUSSELLOVE” recently that was lots of fun, encouraging people to share their mussel love inspiration on Facebook. Twitter and Instagram.

When did the idea of organising an Adelaide Food & Wine Festival first come to you and what inspired it? 

Quite honestly, it was only 6 months or so into living in Adelaide that I wondered why we didn’t have our own food and wine festival… Having worked for the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival and with Sydney International Food Festival, I sensed an opportunity then, but I knew as an outsider to Adelaide if I decided then and there to produce a festival it would be akin to going out into rapid fire without a flak jacket – I could hear the cries of “who does she think she is?” from the established Adelaide folks! So I figured I would set about to get to know the State – its winemakers; traders; chefs; producers and people before I got anywhere near creating a festival.
I worked for the Lord Mayor Michael Harbison, established myself on the marketing committee for the Adelaide Central Market and got to know people like Josh Fanning, Jim Plouffe at Adelaide* Magazine, Paola Coro, Mark Gleeson, Corrina Wright, Sue Bell etc etc.
When I left the Council job, I started producing events – mostly at Adelaide Central Market but also interstate. Bolstered by the continued success of these events and feeling confident I could ‘pull it off’ so to speak, it was in November last year that the Adelaide Food and Wine Festival was conceived – over a good bottle of wine, with like-minded friends. Then, the Festival was to be one weekend or perhaps 4 days and maybe a maximum of 10 events, but, with the amazingly positive response it quickly grew to be 8 days and the program now boasts some 31 events.

When you first told people about your idea, what was the general reaction? Which companies or organisations were particularly supportive? 

As above, the immediate reaction was so great that I spent an entire month meeting with people from across the state back-to-back. Some people were curious and perhaps even considered the Festival as predatory but the majority of people simply wanted to get involved. I have a folder of emails that I have kept and the basic message from these people getting in touch who had maybe read about the festival in InDaily or heard me on ABC or 5AA radio was “what a great idea, good on you for having the guts to do it.”
It was the support of individuals that I was most bolstered by – these people became the committee – and then 891 ABC Adelaide came on board as a radio partner in our first year and the Adelaide* Magazine agreed to support one of our events as a reader event. Others include the Adelaide Central Market, the Hilton, winemakers from across the country, restaurants, chefs, producers such as Michelle Lally from Savannah Lamb and Saskia Beer, Richard Gunner, Marco Marinelli, Mark Gleeson, Lucia’s, Rennicks, Novatech – I can’t list everyone here that has done something large or small to assist this first Festival getting off the ground.

You’ve put together an interesting program, with lots of events to suit different tastes, including a bacon trail with Saskia Beer and a tea degustation. Which events are you most proud of and why? 

I’m most proud of the entire program but if I had to pick one event it would definitely be  the Market Feast. It was the Market Feast that made me feel we could actually call this the Adelaide Food and Wine Festival. An after-hours progressive dinner in our mecca of food (i.e. the Adelaide Central Market)? It is probably the event that has had the most protracted negotiations but with sheer determination we got there. I cannot wait for it.

Are there any family-friendly activities? 

Absolutely, we encourage families to get involved in many of our events – Wines & Fishes on Semaphore Beach (April 13) will be a wonderful day that kid are most welcome to attend (so long as they are seafood lovers)! At #EASTENDWINEDOWN on Sunday 7th there will be a special “kids corner” with crayons and paper to keep the little ones occupied. For more grown-up kids, the hands-on classes — learning to make butter or sausages in the Central Market Kitchen — would be a great thing for parents to do with their kids. They’re educational and fun!

I notice you have a pie floater competition as part of the programme. (A pie floater is a meat pie served with tomato sauce on a bed of pea soup – it’s a uniquely South Australian dish). In your opinion, what makes a great pie floater? 

Yes, we are hoping to get some interesting entries in that! The Pie Floater was my first culinary experience of Adelaide as an 8 year old girl. My father told me quite seriously that the peas cannot be too thick, they need to be more soupy in consistency… I think the secret is in that heavenly combination of crunch/flakiness of pastry and velvety soupiness of the peas (plus a decent amount of good tomato sauce) As with any classic dish, the better the elements that go into making it, the better the overall result.

The inaugural Adelaide Food and Wine Festival runs from 6-14 April. Check out the full program.  

My brother recently did some sorting out in my parent’s garage. Over the years it had become both a repository and a dumping ground – it was a place for all those odds and ends that were important enough to keep but irrelevant enough to neglect. Along with the handwritten mix tapes, old school projects and Patricia Cornwall novels, he found a whole box of old family albums.

This photo of my mum and dad was taken in the 60s.

They were visiting Mount Gambier, South Australia, with a group of friends to visit the family of a friend.

I love this photo set against some fishermen’s baskets. My parents look so young, naturally, but they both look so happy and untroubled, too. This was before they had kids, of course.

My mum looks so calm and content here…

…whilst my dad is cutting loose – go, dad!

After flicking through these photos I felt inspired to cook something beach-appropriate. Now I love eating fish and chips on the beach as we did last week but I felt like making something very fresh and clean-tasting.

This Thai Prawn Salad certainly fits the bill. I’ve eaten numerous versions of this salad in Thailand and I never get tired of it. You can also substitute squid, fish, chicken thighs, tofu, pork mince or add a couple of cakes of soaked glass (mung bean) noodles if you like. Just remember to make up  at least 50% more dressing if you are adding the noodles as they will soak up a lot of the dressing.

Although usually eaten in a hot climate, Thai food can be cooler weather-appropriate, too. I love this salad as part of a meal including a fiery Tom Yum soup to start, steamed rice and a red or green Thai curry. All the chilli will get your blood pumping and warm you up nicely, too. Those who prefer their food less hot can halve or quarter the amount of chilli.

Enjoy this recipe and as you eat, dream of future days spent at the beach with loved ones.

INGREDIENTS – SALAD

• 500 grams prawns, cooked and peeled
• 100 grams mixed lettuce leaves
• 2 Lebanese cucumbers or 1 continental cucumber, sliced
• 1 punnet (200 grams) baby tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 bunch mint, leaves picked
• 1/2 bunch coriander, leaves picked
• 3 spring onions (white part only), sliced thinly
• 4 tablespoons roasted and roughly chopped peanuts (optional)
• 2 tablespoons fried shallots (from Asian grocer)

INGREDIENTS – DRESSING

• 1.5 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1.5 tablespoons grated palm sugar or brown sugar
• 1.5 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 1 garlic clove, minced or smashed with a mortar and pestle
• 1 lemongrass stalk (white part only), sliced finely or smashed with a mortar and pestle
• 3 tablespoons lime juice (juice of 1 fresh lime)
• 1 Birds Eye chilli, chopped finely

METHOD

1. Combine all salad ingredients in a large serving bowl.
2. Combine all salad ingredients in a small cup and stir briskly to combine.
3. Add dressing to salad and mix to combine.
4. Serve immediately.

Serves 2-4.

Regular readers may notice one or fifty little changes around The Hungry Australian today. Yes, my blog has had a makeover!

We’ve been working quietly behind the scenes for some time now to make The Hungry Australian much more user-friendly. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for so long and I’m really happy with the results. What do you think?

Behind the scenes there have also been some other big changes that I’ve been dying to share.

Firstly, my blog is now part of the Servved network by Sydney Stockholm. I’m  honoured to be sharing this space with Billy, Cyn and Peter – I’ve been crushing on all these guys’ blogs for years so to be sitting alongside them on Servved is incredible. *pinches self*

When I started The Hungry Australian in June 2011 I could never have imagined all the wonderful opportunities and friendships that blogging would bring into my life. It has been absolutely life-changing for me, in all sorts of extraordinary ways, and I am just so grateful.

One unexpected bonus of publishing my blog is that it’s led to my current career as a freelancer and consultant. Nowadays I work on all kinds of food-related content —  recipes, freelance or copy writing, styling and photography — and digital publishing projects for clients all over Australia and beyond. I’m thankful that my paid work is now at a level that my parents have stopped asking me when I am going to get a real job. They now understand that I have a real job, as odd as it may seem to them.

As my work has grown, so too has the challenge of juggling work, this blog and my two kids – let’s just say that I rarely go to bed before midnight and I have to dose myself with a strong pot of tea in the morning.

So I’m thrilled to be working with Sydney Stockholm who will be managing the commercial side of the The Hungry Australian from now on. Yes, I now carry advertising — you’ll have noticed the single banner at the top of my blog — but it’s contextual and nicely designed. Sydney Stockholm also managed the great redesign of this blog (with a lot of input from me) and look after the technical side of things. This leaves me free to focus on what’s most important to me – the content. I love creating new stories, recipes and imagery to share with you.

So will my blogging style change from now on? Probably. Hopefully. It’s changed over the 21 months since I started this blog and I hope it continues to evolve. What won’t change, however, is my editorial control of my blog. Regular readers will know that I am an unashamed control freak. So while my blogging style will develop as I do, I will always retain 100% editorial control.

Similarly, my personal ethics and integrity remain the same: I will always disclose any sponsorships and I will always blog honestly and from my heart.

I am so grateful to all of you who read this blog and those who take the time to share or comment on my posts. Thank you for your tremendous support. Your feedback and your own food stories inspire me every day.

The Hungry Australian has always been about the pursuit of a delicious life. So I do hope you’ll continue to join me on this food-filled journey – we have lots of exploring and eating to do!

When it comes to alcohol I’m a cheap date. As is the case for many Asians, alcohol is not my friend; consumed in anything other than small quantities alcohol makes me itchy, red and ill.

Back in my university days I used to be able to knock back 6-7 vodka mixers over the course of a night without too much trouble – I think I had youth on my side back then, plus I was able to spend the whole next day in bed. But I gave up alcohol when I was pregnant with my daughter and never really went back on it apart from the occasional glass with friends. So nowadays when I drink it hits me like a 10-tonne cement truck. Depending on my day, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

When I do drink, my tipple of choice are sweetish drinks: white wines, champagne, G&Ts (Gin & Tonics), Guinness with a shot of lime cordial (not so common but it works for me), mojitos and bellinis. Apart from the Guinness they’re all drinks that I associate with warm Summer days spent lazily in the company of good friends.

I was reminded of such good times when I spotted a sensational looking G&T sorbet post on Peter’s blog recently. His mouth-watering recipe inspired me to break out the Prosecco and peaches to make this Bellini sorbet.

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If you’re reading this blog it’s a safe bet that you’re a food lover. But are you also a lover of films about food?

Thanks to Curious Films, I have 10 copies of a lovely documentary, Step Up to the Plate, to give way.

Step Up to the Plate follows a year in the life of French chef Michel Bras and his son Sébastien during which Michel passes the reins of his three-Michelin Star hotel-restaurant to his son. So if you’re someone who is fascinated by food and keen to learn what life is really like running a world-class restaurant you’ll find lots to enjoy here.

Check out the trailer.

I’m going to keep this giveaway simple so to enter simply leave a comment below telling me your favourite food scene from a film. Good luck!

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Unlike some of my Italian friends I grew up knowing only pesto bought from the supermarket in a jar. Added to some freshly cooked spaghetti it made a passable dinner when I was starving after work but it was nothing I’d want to serve when I had company.

Then maybe a decade ago I began making my own pesto. What a revelation! The difference between a freshly made pesto and one designed to live in the fridge for months is extraordinary. Once you’ve tried making your own pesto, you really can’t go back to the supermarket kind.What’s more, making your own pesto is super quick and super easy, too. Can you chuck a few ingredients in a blender and press ‘blend?’ Of course you can so you really have no excuses not to try making this.

If you make this pesto with spaghettini, as I have here, the whole meal should take you just over five minutes to make. Remember, you can speed up the cooking process by boiling the water in the kettle and then transferring the boiled water to the cooking pot.

That’s dinner done in a flash. Buon appetito!

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I have a problem. *hangs head*

It started off with a little bit here and then a little bit there when I was younger. Pretty soon I was hooked and nowadays I need my fix at least once a day.

The problem is that it’s so socially acceptable in Australia, too. People actively encourage you to indulge, egging you on to see how much you can imbibe in one sitting. No one ever says, “don’t you think you’ve had enough?” or “maybe that should be your last bottle.” People think my addiction is a laugh, not a problem.

But I do have to take responsibility for my own actions. If truth be told, I’ve never needed any encouragement to binge on my drug of choice.

What am I talking about? Why, chilli of course!

Yes, my name is Christina and I am a chilli addict. I’m hooked on the endorphin rush, the mouth-tingling, the seared taste buds, and the numb lips. With chilli always on the menu, I toy daily with that fine line between pleasure and pain that Samantha Fox sung of.

Maybe I never stood a chance because it’s in my blood. My Chinese father was born in Penang, Malaysia, so grew up eating a cultural smorgasbord of Malaysian, Chinese and Indian food. Even now, his favourite birthday present ever remains a basket of mixed chilli sauces my brother and I put together.

So when I decided to make a sauce to celebrate Electrolux’s Open Sauce competition and this TurboPro giveaway it had to be a chill sauce. What a sauce this is, too. Fiery, intense and fragrant, this chilli sauce is the stuff that red-hot dreams are made of. I started tasting it when cooking it and could barely restrain myself from eating the whole jar.

Electrolux’s Open Sauce competition is open to everyone but I’d especially encourage you to enter if you’re a passionate home cook. Upload your recipe here and then a jury (including moi) will select a winning recipe to be produced and distributed to Michelin-starred restaurants. You’ll also receive 100 bottles of your own sauce to share amongst your family and friends. Entering the competition will take only a few minutes and the deadline is 21st March so head over there now.

And if you’re a chilli freak like I am, I urge you to make this sauce. It’s super easy and just too good.

$139 Electrolux TurboPro Giveaway

Thanks to Electrolux I have a $139 Electrolux TurboPro mixer — a fantastic, Chef-quality tool designed for home cooks — up for grabs. I’ve bought cheaper mixers before and they sometimes struggled but this baby has a 700W engine and will blend up practically anything. I used it to make this chilli sauce and it was seriously impressive.

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A few weeks ago I visited Melbourne and had dinner at Pabu Grill & Sake with a group of local food bloggers, Winston, Ashley, Bryan and Adrian. It was a wonderful evening full of great food, laughter and merriment, and I marvelled again at how blogging has broughts all sorts of lovely new friends into my life.

I hadn’t met Adrian before but during the night it emerged that Adrian’s debut cookbook, What the heck is Filipino food? had just been awarded Best Asian Cuisine Book for Australia by the 18th Annual Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.

This would be a great achievement for any cookbook author. For a first-time cookbook author/food blogger, who self-published, it’s a feat nothing short of extraordinary. So I was excited when Adrian agreed to share the inside story on the awards, what inspires him and how his cookbook came about. 

Everyone, meet Adrian!

Adrian, you’ve just got back from the 18th Annual Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris. How do you feel? 

Thanks, Christina! Honestly, I’m still in shock. Happy and excited, but still in shock. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that a Filipino cookbook uniquely designed like a comic book would be recognised internationally by such an iconic culinary institution like Gourmand, let alone win an award!

Just getting the cookbook out there was enough for me, but this was ‘out of this world’ unexpected especially considering 171 countries participated this year. It was the only Filipino cookbook on the finalist list so I was humbled and honoured to have represented both Australia and Philippines at the ceremony. I hope I did both countries proud.

What was the Awards ceremony like?

I would describe the ceremony as being the Cookbook Oscars, well, it certainly felt that way and many people I spoke to that night described it the same way. It was a red carpet shindig filmed live with 1,500 attendees not including media and was held at the Louvre Museum so we were surrounded by so much history and art. I had just been to see the Mona Lisa the day prior so knowing we were in the same building was simply incredible.

The organisers did such an amazing job. The most memorable part of the evening (apart from the hefty amounts of foie gras) was seeing my cookbook displayed on the massive screen when my category was announced. I wanted to jump up and down right then and there. In that moment, it made all the hard work of putting the book together and all the challenges that came with it, worthwhile.

Did you get some serious eating done in Paris? What were your most memorable meals?

I did nothing else but eat. Well, there was the sightseeing but I always made sure I had something edible in my hand whether it be a fresh berry tart or a warm croissant from the endless boulangeries around the city. I followed my food compass which was going bizerk!

It may sound clichéd, but eating beef bourguignon whilst watching little snowflakes trickle down at the cosy local favourite, Les Mauvais Garçons was exactly what I wanted to do in Paris.  Another highlight was the Seafood feast at Huîtrerie Régis. I randomly found this boutiquey secret near the market where all they do is wine and seafood.  They have four kinds of oysters, the sweetest prawns and a large selection of wine to guzzle down.

Le bar à huitres by Garry Dorr was another hit with their seafood from  crispy sea bream served with buttery mash, seafood platters so high you almost need a stool to grab the sea snails to reinventing how olive oil should be served – via a cologne bottle along with the simple things like grabbing a punnet of the most juiciest blackberries from the market to gorging on fresh bread, butter and pate. I also brought back a year’s supply of terrine after tasting a particular brand at a restaurant.  Paris is truly a foodie’s dream. I was in bliss and didn’t want to leave.

Tell us about your blog, Food Rehab. When did you start blogging and what kinds of things do you blog about?

I started Food Rehab in early 2009. Over the years, my blog has evolved. I now focus on things I like writing about the most – Filipino food of course, reflective pieces on being a food blogger and my thoughts on blogging in general like How I turned into the EATER I am today, the crazy Cafe Hopping series where I run around Melbourne devouring as many breakfasts as possible within a 48 hour period (kinda like the Amazing race but with food), my CHAT series involving a mixture of interviews with culinary greats and charity driven entrepreneurs changing the landscape which I’m really passionate about from Shane Pereira – who creates 5000 meals a month for the hungry, The Reading Room Cafe who not only serves the best French Toast in town but also gives back to the community, Adam Liaw and my latest interview with the now famed Candied Bakery. I also document my travel adventures from eating sushi alive (eep!) in Japan, Fried Chicken hunts in the US to unofficial Filipino Food tours across California.

My style of writing is at times, unconventional. I guess being one to stick to the norm just isn’t in me and that side of me comes through into my posts. I think that’s really important that your blog is written in your own voice and style. I don’t take myself too seriously and tend to blend my love for comics into the blog which you may notice in the blog’s header as well as my cookbook’s front cover.

How did ‘What the heck is Filipino food?’ come about?

Inspiration for the book was definitely from my mum. She raised two rowdy boys on her own yet managed cook us the most amazing meals that had us running back home for Merienda after school.  Unlike most kids, we skipped the milk bar most days, yet none of her recipes were written down. Mum ruled the kitchen. I offered to put them up on my blog as a tribute to her recipes and for her friends to read but Mum was a little skeptical.

“BLOG? Can you show my friends how to use a blog?”

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Welcome to the third recipe in my 5 Minute Eats series, which features my favourite recipes that can be made in five minutes or less. Today we’re making Hummus with Toasted Garlic, Chilli & Lemon Flat Bread.

I cleaned up and reorganised my pantry with my six year old yesterday – yes, I know, we are just untamed in this household. The anal and uptight Virgo that lurks somewhere inside me is now inordinately pleased to have a neat and tidy pantry – I now know exactly what is in there and I can find things without having to mutter crossly to myself.

I like organising my 60-odd spices into three different containers: Sweet/Desserts, Asian and Western. This makes sense to me – it means when I’ve cooking something on the stove and need a little pinch of flavour I know exactly in which container where to look. Some people prefer an alphabetical spice rack but I like grouping flavours that work together, together: I’ve taken the Trinny & Susannah method of organising your wardrobe — sorting by outfit rather than by item of clothing — and adapted it to my pantry.

One thing I always have in the pantry are canned chickpeas. I’ll chuck them in a salad, soup or stew or I’ll make a quick batch of hummus for a light lunch or snack. I know some people get their kicks by cooking dried chickpeas from scratch but it’s not a path I feel I need to go down.

This hummus recipe is one that I’ve made many times before. Sometimes I add a little greek yoghurt so it has a lighter, moussier texture, but other times I prefer it as is, thick and gloopy. If you like a super-smooth dip you can remove the chickpea skins before blending but I never bother myself.

The flat bread recipe was inspired by something I ate at my old piano teacher’s house back in the 80s. Snacks were not usually part of my weekly half hour lesson but one day she had a plate of these out and offered me a piece. I’d never eaten anything like it before and I remember asking her how she made them and how she’d come to do put those particular ingredients together – my fascination with food and the stories behind recipes clearly began at an early age.

Along with a couple of pieces of fruit or some cucumber and carrot sticks, this would actually make a great lunch to take to work. You could make the dip and bread in the morning, transport them in tupperware or a similar airtight container and then break it out at lunchtime. Then when people ask you what you’re eating, you’ll be able to say nonchalantly,”This? I made it in five minutes this morning.”

Treasure these moments, friends.

5 Minute Eats: Hummus with Garlic, Chilli & Lemon Flat Bread

One thing I love about working as a recipe developer is the chance to share my recipes — and my family’s recipes — with a much wider audience. I’m always thrilled when someone emails me or comments on a post to tell me that they tried one of my recipes and enjoyed it.

In the process of having to break a recipe down and re-imagine it to suit a client’s specific needs I usually learn a thing or two, too. This Fried Wontons recipe developed for Bertolli Extra Light olive oil is a great example of this. I tested four different wonton wrappers on three different batches of wontons before I found the ultimate wonton wrapper. Yep, my family ate a lot of wonton that week!

Now I know some people think deep frying at home is taking your MasterChef aspirations a step too far but ignore them. It’s not hard, especially if you follow my tips below. Yes, you’ll end up with a lot of oil but you can do what I did: let it cool, strain it and then decant it into a suitable container to reuse as required. It’s what my paternal grandmother did and what my parents have always done so I’m in good company here.

Some tips for you:

1. Use a deep saucepan when deep-frying to avoid splashing,
2. Let the oil heat up properly before adding wontons. If you don’t have a thermometer or can’t be bothered using one, simply drop in a little piece of wonton skin. It should immediately start bubbling furiously and rise to the surface. If it just sits there looking like a flaccid piece of wonton skin remove it and wait a little longer before trying again.
3. Use a suitable slotted spoon or long-handled pair of wooden chopsticks to remove the wontons. Don’t use a normal pair of chopsticks – they’re nowhere near long enough and you don’t win points for being a hero.
4. Remove the just-fried wonton to a plate lined with 1-2 paper towels to absorb excess oil.
5. You can make the wonton up in advance and store them in the fridge between layers of baking paper to avoid sticking but this dish must be eaten immediately to be enjoyed at its best.
6. It is highly unlikely that you will ever win the lottery so you might as well spend that money on fancy knives and other kitchen accessories.

Get this dish right and you’ll be rewarded with golden bundles of deep-fried goodness and joy. Serve said bundles of joy with a dipping sauce made of Chinkiang vinegar, minced ginger, chilli oil and light soy sauce – the combination is sublime and incredibly more-ish.

On second thoughts, maybe you better double the recipe to be on the safe side. Enjoy!

Recipe: Fried Wontons

 

Author: Christina Soong-Kroeger

Recipe type: Appetizer

Cuisine: Chinese

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Fried wontons = golden bundles of joy!

Ingredients

• 300 grams minced pork
• 80 grams raw shelled prawn meat, chopped roughly
• 3-4 finely sliced spring onions (about ½ cup)
• 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
• 1.5 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1.5 tablespoons minced ginger (use a fine grater)
• ¼ teaspoon white pepper
• 1 packet wonton wrappers
• 4 tablespoons water
• 1 - 1.5 litres oil, depending on the size of your saucepan

Instructions

1. Combine pork, prawns, spring onions, Shaoxing wine, light soy sauce, minced ginger and white pepper in a medium bowl.
2. Fill a small bowl with water.
3. Pick up one wonton wrapper and spoon some filling into the centre. Using the water, run a wet finger around the wrapper edges and then press them firmly together, making sure that there is no air trapped inside. Repeat with the rest of the filling.
4. Heat up the oil in a small saucepan – you need the oil to cover the wontons completely so adjust the amount of oil to suit your saucepan.
5. Once oil is bubbling, fry the wontons in two to three batches over a medium heat. Wontons are ready when they float to the surface and are nicely browned (average 4-6 minutes).
6. Drain on kitchen paper and then serve immediately with sweet and sour sauce, and/or Chiangkiang (black) vinegar mixed with minced ginger, chilli oil and light soy sauce.

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Welcome to another interview in my Meet a Food Lover series. Today we’re talking to Melbourne illustrator, artist and teacher, Dawn Tan.

I can’t remember exactly how I first came across Dawn’s work but it was during one of my late night trawls around the internet. [UPDATE: I remembered today that my good friend Kerina West actually sent me a link to Dawn’s site some months ago. Sorry Kerina! I must remember to take my ginkgo biloba more regularly. ]

When I hopped onto Dawn’s site I was immediately charmed by her whimsical and charming food illustrations and paintings. How could I not love a pillowcase with a selection of cold cuts on it, or a melamine plate and cup set displaying a hamburger and french fries respectively?

Dawn is a woman who clearly enjoys her life and loves food, which makes her a great person to know in my book. So I was thrilled when she agreed to share some of her work with us today, explain how she came to make food her muse, and take us through the steps in a typical design commission.

Everybody, meet Dawn!

Christina: Dawn, tell us about yourself. 

Welcome to the second recipe in my 5 Minute Eats series, which features my favourite recipes that can be made in five minutes or less.

I’ve made this gorgeous Tomato & Bocconcini Salad many times before but was reminded of what a lovely combination it is when I ate something similar at a friend’s house recently.

Two things to remember: make sure the tomatoes are at room temperature (chilled tomatoes are tasteless) and that you dress the salad and let it sit for a while before eating. The flavours will mix and meld and the dressing will soak nicely into the cheese. Salt flakes and ground black pepper should be added just before serving so they don’t make the tomatoes weep. The salt will also make all the flavours pop.

This recipe is almost fool-proof so it’s perfect for those moments someone wanders into the kitchen and asks if they can give you hand with anything. Instead of politely demurring, show them the ingredients, a knife and a chopping board and let them get on with it while you put your feet up and enjoy a glass of wine.

I call that a win-win.

5 Minute Eats: Tomato & Bocconcini Salad

I’ve been a bookworm as long as I could read. When I was a young girl we would visit the library every Saturday and I would borrow another bag of books to read over the next week.

Amongst all the books I read spunky literary heroines were thin on the ground. Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree lot were nice but insipid, Katie from What Katie Did was admirable but unexciting and three of the four March girls  in Louisa M Alcott’s Little Women were largely forgettable.

The girls I loved reading about were the trailblazers, the ones who broke the mould because they didn’t really fit in anywhere. I adored the impulsive and hot tempered writer Jo March in Little Women, the delightfully original Penny Pollard series by Australian author Robyn Klein and Mulan, the real-life Chinese girl who dressed as a man to take her father’s place in the Chinese army. These girls were brave, strong, smart and wholly original. They stepped off the usual paths to make their own and millions of girls like me cheered their every step.

My most beloved literary heroine was Anne of Anne of Green Gables, that red-headed, freckled orphan created by Lucy Maud Montgomery. The plot: Anne goes to live with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert on Prince Edward Island because of a mixup and winds up changing the lives of everyone she meets. When we first meet Anne she is skinny, awkward and plain. Later, she blossoms into a beautiful, confident woman but throughout it all she remains the same  – a spunky, creative and impulsive person who can always see the positive in every situation.

Here’s the movie trailer.

Two words: Gilbert. Blythe. *swoon*

Anne was the person I aspired to be when I grew up. So you can imagine my horror when I saw that an unauthorised publisher had recently created this new cover (on the left) for their edition of Anne of Green Gables.

(Image courtesy Courier Mail)

GAH!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR ANNE?

Anne is not blonde. She is not curvy. She does not pull her hair seductively off her face. She does not stare at the reader with a come-hither gaze.

Hoik her shirt a little higher and undo a few buttons and she could be an FHM cover girl. This is an appalling lapse of judgement by a new, unsanctioned publisher. Clearly whoever was in charge didn’t even bother reading the book. Heck, he or she didn’t even bother googling ‘Anne of Green Gables’.

FAIL.FAIL.FAIL.

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Can’t you almost smell the orange in that photograph above? That gorgeous image was taken by Grant Nowell, a multi award-winning professional photographer based in Adelaide.

I first met Grant when he was a presenter at the 3rd Australian Food Bloggers Conference. Afterwards Grant was kind enough to give me a few pointers and over the past few months I’ve appreciated his advice and support. I recently worked on the redesign of his portfolio website, too.

Grant has a wealth of knowledge about photography,  food photography and food styling so I was thrilled when he agreed to share some of his food photography tips and stories with us today.

Everyone, meet Grant!

C: Grant, when did you first become interested in photography and why?

G: When I was a teenager I hated school mainly because it offered no artistic subjects and I always felt quite creative. To balance my appalling applied science subjects I bought a secondhand camera with one lens and started shooting anything that moved. Instead of spending money on cigarettes and girlfriends I bought an enlarger and trays and set up in my dad’s garden shed. In 1974 I gave a few fairly bad black and white prints to a local newspaper for possible publication. To my amazement they published a few of the pictures. I then got lucky because they were just about to employ a cadet and ending up offering me the job.

How did you end up at a News Limited newspaper?

I spent the next 15 years working all over Australia and abroad and then I started breeding and had two gorgeous kids. I always had a love of the lifestyle, food and wine culture of Adelaide so I contacted the editor of The Advertiser and within a few weeks I was offered a job as a senior photographer. In 1992 I was appointed pictorial editor offering pictorial advice and management for the 30 photographers and darkroom staff and The Advertiser was the first News Ltd paper in the group to publish full colour pictures every day. Three years later I was appointed senior feature photographer: my main responsibility was to shoot all their food and wine images as well as fashion and other feature material.

What do you shoot with? 

I have a Nikon D700 that I use with the Nikkor f2.8 24-70mm lens (a fantastic all round lens) and the Nikkor 60mm macro lens. Apart from my first cameraI have always been a Nikon person. These days most of the big name cameras are quite brilliant but the stand out brands are Nikon and Canon. A good photographer will always get pretty cool pix even with a crappy camera but it’s the opposite for a photographer who just struggles pictorially – give them $20K worth of gear and they will still struggle and come up with culinary train wrecks.

What do you edit your photos with?

I don’t edit or enhance my pictures too much, I prefer to get things pretty right through the camera. I occasionally use Photoshop to improve or clean up an image or get rid of some grains of pepper or some stray spots of olive oil that I missed on the plate.

What gear or accessories do you always have in your camera bag?

I always have spare charged batteries and a cheapish spare camera body just in case my main Nikon baby crashes – a photographer’s worst nightmare is not being able to take pictures. I also carry another bag full of duct tape, bulldog clips, bits of white plastic I use to reflect light onto food, a few of my favourite plates which make even rotten food look brilliant, some pieces of material, toothpicks to stick into food so you can hold in position and a towel to clean up.

You once told me you can ‘read light’. What did you mean by this and why is this ability so important as a photographer?

Photography only exists because of light – you can’t shoot anything in total darkness. Whenever I’m on a shoot the first thing I always do is quietly walk around the space and see how the light is flowing out of windows, skylights or doorways. I use natural light so I always turn off any artificial light like fluorescent and down lights.

I read the natural light to see if it’s reflecting colors off interior walls. Available light is almost like water rushing out of a hose – it floods in a window or door, hits the walls and ceiling then comes back at you and your camera. A good way to read light is to hold your hand up and just look at you skin tones: if it looks natural then the light is pretty clean but if it has a tinge to it it’s time to grab your food and move.

I once had a major shoot at a Thai restaurant with a big reputation but the restaurant space was a pictorial nightmare with down lights and no natural light. I went for a walk to see how I could get beautiful food shots and found brilliant subdued available light in the toilet next to the wash basin. So  I set up a few boxes with my backdrop in place and off I went! The executive chef thought I was completely insane as I took his food into the men’s bathroom and I could hear him yelling out some exotic Thai swear words. After I finished the first dish I went and showed the chef the image to calm him down. He loved the image of his food – his smile lit up the kitchen and he stopped swearing.

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Hello!

Welcome to the first post in my new 5 Minute Eats series. I want to demonstrate that eating well doesn’t take a lot of time or effort so recipes in this series can all be made in five minutes or less.

This Chilled Cucumber Soup is inspired by a dish my American friend Sara once made for me in Shanghai. It’s perfect for hot weather as it’s amazingly cooling and refreshing. It packs quite a protein punch, too, containing 300 grams of soft tofu, which gives it a soft, natural set yoghurt texture.

For dinner I’d serve it as a first course but for lunch I’d eat it as is with a salad and piece of fruit. Enjoy! Continue reading →

Is it still hot here or is it just me?

Nope, it is still hot in sunny Australia. Yesterday we took full advantage of this warm weather by spending the late afternoon down at the beach. The kids played under the jetty and built sandcastles while I drew in the sand and watched the world walk by. It was relaxing and fun, and I decided we have to visit the beach at least once a week while the weather is warm, no matter how busy we are.

Now regular readers will know that I went fig picking at a friend’s house last week, with happy results. Having a whole box of figs to play with was a wonderful treat. Instead of rationing them out as I usually do — figs are $AUD30/kg right now — I flung them around the kitchen with abandon. In the end, simplicity ruled though; when the produce is this good, you really don’t want to do too much to it.

This recipe will take you all of five minutes to make. Seriously. OK, I went with shop bought ice cream and top quality strawberry sauce (by local company Beerenberg) but that doesn’t make this dessert any less spectacular. In fact, in keeping with Summer’s laid-back feel, there’s something highly appropriate about a dessert that you can casually make on the spot and serve to grateful sweet lovers with nary a hair out of place.

There are three things you should remember, though:

1. Only wash the figs just before cooking. Like strawberries, the minute you wash a fig it’ll start to deteriorate;
2. Spray a cold non-stick grill pan with cooking oil to avoid sticking – I like ProChef’s Soya Bake Non-Stick spray (used more often when baking cakes);
3. Heat up your grill pan until very hot before putting the figs on and cook on a high heat for 3-5 minutes – you want a short burst of intense heat to get those lovely grill marks without overcooking the figs.

The weather has been crazy hot in Adelaide for three days now.

Now I love hot weather but when it’s hot I want to be eating hawker noodles in Asia, swimming at the beach or lazing by a hotel pool, cocktail in hand. When I’m trying to shoot ice cream, working on a client project or doing the school run, a very hot day is rather a bore because I focus on how hot and uncomfortable I am, rather than the job at hand.

Enter this icy dessert, designed to blow all those heat-cobwebs away and leave me feeling refreshed and energised.

This Strawberry Granita is so easy to make — my 6 year old could do it without any trouble — and it’s absolutely delicious. It’s healthy, too, as I’ve used rice malt syrup as a sweetener instead of sugar.

So when I found out the theme for Sweet Adventures’ new hop was License to Chill I knew I had to make this.

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

Previously, we have hosted: Tropical Paradise (January 2013), Sweets for Santa (December 2012), 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).

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“Ok everyone: it’s time to glove up,” Kate announces.

“Errrr… glove up?” I ask. Gloving up is not an activity I usually associate with picking fruit.

“Yeah, the sap from the figs can make your skin really itchy if it gets on you,” Kate explains.

The kids and I have been invited for a special treat today – picking figs at a friend’s house.

Kate is my sister-in-law’s cousin. We’d met before at their annual Boxing Day family get-togethers but a few months ago my sister-in-law’s sister sent me a link to Kate’s blog, Gluten-Free for Lunch Boxes, created after Kate’s youngest daughter was diagnosed with coeliac disease.

When we caught up last Boxing Day we got chatting and Kate invited us to visit to pick figs at her house when they were in season. I’ve blogged about my love for figs before so I was thrilled to receive an email from her recently saying that her figs were ready.

Kate’s fig tree is maybe 30-40 years old and produces great quantities of fruit throughout February and March.

I had no idea figs produced so much sap when picked. The sap is milky white to start with but dries clear and becomes very sticky. If you try to separate two figs that have sap on them their delicate skins will tear off in patches.

We pick and pick and later, Kate packs a box of figs for us, about 1.5 kgs worth. What a treat!

(Photo taken on Instagram – follow me at @thehungryaustralian.)

The next morning I take the figs out of the refrigerator. They’re shiny with sap in patches.

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