Tag Archives: articles

  • Thai Seafood Banquet Class at Sticky Rice Cooking School

    I love watching people cook.

    People always do things differently to me, in ways I had never considered. So I always learn about something new – a new ingredient, a new technique, a new cooking style – and it sends me straight back to my kitchen feeling inspired and energised.

    So I was delighted to take part in the Thai Seafood Banquet class at Sticky Rice Cooking School a couple of weekends ago.

    Sticky Rice Cooking School is run by Claire Fuller, who decided there was a place for a cooking school that offered more than a celebrity chef demonstration without the formality of a professional cooking course. Her school offers people a chance to really get their hands dirty, to learn about the culture as well as the food, to leave knowing where to buy the ingredients used (and which brands are recommended) and exactly how to cook the featured dishes at home.

    Chefs at the school include David Thompson (ex Darley Street Thai, author), Katrina Ryan (ex Rockpool), Kurma Dasa (Australia’s vegetarian guru, author), Kelly Lord (Spirit House), Genevieve Harris (ex Nediz), Ali Seedsman (ex Magill Estate and Universal Wine Bar), Jordon Theodoros (Aquacaf), Brian Smith and Allie Reynolds.

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  • Meet A Food Lover: Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks + Giveaway

    Eating healthier is something I’m always keen on. I don’t mean eating less fat because I don’t believe in diets – dieting is like having no sex or no money. When I’m on a diet the only thing I think about all day long is food and what I can’t eat, which is an awful and unhappy state to be in.

    Instead of dieting, I aim to eat healthier. This means less processed food, preservatives, additives, white flour and white sugar, and greater variety and exploration of unfamiliar foods.

    It’s not about being a food cop and locking away all the lollies and sweet biscuits my kids love. Rather, it’s about eating a wider variety of healthier foods, and minimising the excursions into the lolly jar.

    It’s also about eating less meat both for health reasons and minimising our environmental footprint. Mr Hungry Australian has been on a health kick lately, exercising every day, shedding nine kilograms and developing muscles in places I didn’t know you could even have muscles. He’s been nagging me for a while about eating less meat, and while I agreed in principle, putting it into practise has proved trickier.

    So I was delighted to be sent a copy of Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day to review by Hardie Grant.

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  • Charmaine Solomon’s The Complete Asian Cookbook

    I’m a big fan of acclaimed Australian/Sri-Lankan cookbook author, Charmaine Solomon.

    The woman can really cook. And she can write, too, having trained as a journalist many moons ago. To date, she’s published over 30 books.

    I’ve cooked a number of dishes from Charmaine’s books over the years and her recipes are always authentic, unfussy and delicious. People lucky enough to be fed the results inevitably ooh and ahh.

    It’s not surprising really, because very single recipe I’ve ever tried works. I haven’t found a dud yet and I certainly can’t say that about every cookbook I own.

    I was introduced to Charmaine’s cookbooks when I was a teenage by my mum, who had her 1980 Curry Cookbook. It was one of the first cookbooks I ever read for pure pleasure, especially enjoying the comments on individual recipes by Charmaine and Rueben, her husband and co-author.

    Much later, I put Charmaine’s The Complete Asian Cookbook on my wedding registry and was delighted to receive it as a wedding present from my ex colleagues at Chunky Move. It was one of those cookbooks I instinctively felt I would refer to time and time again.

    I was not wrong. The Complete Asian Cookbook is one of the important Australian cookbooks, right up there with Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion, and Margaret Fulton’s eponymous cookbook which I also often refer to.

    It’s not just important from an Australian cookery point of view either – The Complete Asian Cookbook has sold well over one million copies since its first release in 1976 and is the most authoritative Asian cookbook available today.

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  • Calling all food bloggers: join us for the Festive Favourites Blog Hop on 19th December

    ‘Tis the season to be jolly, tra la la la la, la la la la.

    Regular readers will know that we had a rather spectacular Great Australian Pavlova Blog Hop last month, featuring 36 amazing pavlovas made by food bloggers from all over the world. Click here to see my deconstructed pavlova entry and all the other amazing pavlovas.

    Well, I’m thrilled to let you know that Sweet Adventures (aka myself, DelicieuxDining With a StudThe Capers of the Kitchen Crusader and 84th & 3rd ) have decided to run a monthly blog hop event focusing on different themed desserts each month.

    This month, being the festive season, we have decided to throw the doors open to any kind of festive dessert.

    That’s right – you can make a gingerbread house, Christmas tree cookies, yuletide log, festive Bombe Alaska, steamed pudding, Christmas trifle, egg nog or whatever you like really. The only criteria is that it has to be some kind of festive, celebratory dessert.

    So what are you waiting for? Crack out the recipe books and your favourite food sites and start thinking about what to bake.

    And we look forward to seeing your amazing creation, along with all the others, on Monday December 19th – Australian Eastern Standard Time [AEST]. 

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  • Wild Degustation: Bistro Dom, Devour Dessert Bar and Natural Selection Theory Wine

    Designed to showcase the skill of the Chef and the kitchen, the degustation menu is as much about showmanship and spectacle as it is about the creativity of the Chef and the quality of the food. It’s a chance for the Chef to take a few risks, knowing his diners want to be inspired and will (usually) go happily out onto the edge with him; part of the fun of a degustation is eating food you wouldn’t normally eat, and of being challenged in your perception of how certain dishes should look, feel and taste.

    Each course of a degustation menu is designed to fit with harmony into an overall experience centred around a particular theme, whether it be produce, region, cuisine or wine. At it’s simplest, a degustation is a chance, for a brief moment in our busy lives, to really focus on the food and wine.

    I thought about this last Thursday night when I attended Bistro Dom’s Wild Degustation dinner, which saw Duncan Welgemoed from Bistro Dom teaming up with Quang Nguyen from Devour Dessert Bar and Sam Hughes, Anton Von Klopper, James Erskine and Tom Shobbrook from Natural Selection Theory.

     

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  • The Smelly Cheese Shop’s Cheese Appreciation Masterclass

    The other day, I returned home to interrogate my husband with the age-old question: “how much do you love me?”

    “Out of ten? Maybe an eight,” he said.

    ‘*An eight?! Is that all?” I shrieked. “Try again.”

    “OK, maybe a nine when you’re not being horrible to me,” he conceded. “Why?”

    I told him that I had a plus one invitation to attend a Cheese Appreciation Masterclass by The Smelly Cheese Shop (TSCS).

    His eyes lit up and he quickly back-tracked. “Did I say nine? I meant, twelve. Twelve out of ten – that’s how much I love you.”

    Huh. Men. The way to their hearts is definitely through their stomachs.

    So it was that Mr Hungry Australian and I found ourself at The Smelly Cheese Shop’s headquarters in Wright Street last Monday night.

    We are welcomed by The Smelly Cheese Shop’s Valerie Henbest, whose horrible job involves travelling the globe sourcing the best cheeses for TSCS and Lulu Lunn, a highly experienced cheese maker who can be found behind the counter sharing her expert knowledge with customers. Both women are whippet thin – a fact that convinces all of us in the class (perhaps erroneously) that we need to add more cheese to our diets.

    Firstly, Valerie takes us into the Cheese Cooling Room. It feels like a bank vault – secure, temperature controlled and housing items of great value: the cheeses surrounding us would collectively be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of the wheels weigh 40kgs – at around $100 a kilogram, that’s $4,000 worth of cheese in that single wheel.

    But the prices these cheeses fetch are not outrageous when you understand how they are made. For example, I’m astonished to learn that it takes 12 litres of milk to make one 250 gram Camembert. Mr Hungry Australian made a lovely fresh cheese a month ago using only 2 litres of milk (see how to make fresh cheese), but a soft ripened cheese like Camembert is of course considerably denser and much more complicated to produce.

    And then there is the ageing process. The most famous of all hard cheeses is Parmigiano-Reggiano, which cannot be sold for at least 12 months after it is made, although an ageing period of three years and longer is completely usual. This ageing process requires an investment of storage and time by the cheese maker, who must plan years ahead to ensure regular income.

    Then it’s back upstairs to learn about the history of cheese and start the cheese tastings.

    Legend has it that cheese was discovered by a nomad, possibly an Arab, who stored some milk in a saddlebag made from the stomach of a young animal. As he rode along in the blisteringly hot sun, the enzymes in the saddlebag separated the milk into curds and whey.

    The first recorded cheese was a Gorgonzola, making an appearance in 879. This was followed by a Roquefort in 1070 and a Gruyere in 1115. Cheddar was recorded in 1500 and Camembert in 1680.

    To whet our appetites, Lulu treats us to some Goats Cheese Mozarella, which she makes right in front of us. She firstly kneads the goats’ milk curds, before covering them with just boiled water, cutting the cheese and then stretching it and manipulating it into balls, which she squeezes off through her fingers.

    Then Valerie begins the tasting by offering us some Buffalo Mozarella from Victoria. It’s creamy, buttery, and delightfully moist; pressing it softly yields drops of milky whey. It’s a very mild-tasting cheese and would be perfect with some vine-ripened tomatoes and fresh basil leaves on sour dough bread.

    We are then invited to try the Coulommiers Truffes from Ile de France. A white mould, soft-ripened cow’s cheese, Coulommiers is similar to a Brie, with the same gorgeous runny texture. But the Coulommiers has a very special feature –  a paste of black truffle and triple cream cheese sandwiched in its centre.

    The Coulommiers’ smell is magnificent, heady, and rich with truffle. I smear some onto a cracker and bite into it. I’m in love. Instantly. Irrevocably. The room seems warmer, the colours brighter. I have visions of flying to France and marrying the man who made this cheese so I can eat it every day before I remember that my husband is sitting next to me. I wonder what will happen if I leave him a Dear John letter along the lines of “the heart wants what it wants.”

    But for now I have to concentrate on the next cheese. The Sainte Maure Frais Cendre from Poitou in France is an ash covered log of goats cheese. Valerie tells us that the ash would have originally been used to help protect the cheese but nowadays it’s mainly for decorative purposes. The Sainte Maure is tangy, full-flavoured and assertive. This is not a cheese for the faint-hearted, or those who aren’t really keen on ‘foreign food.’ It’s a cheese to make you sit up higher in your chair. I love goats cheese and enjoy it baked in the oven and served on crusty bread with a salad.

    The Beaufort D’Alpage AOC from Savoie in France is next. It’s a very likeable semi-hard cheese, and similar to gruyere in taste and appearance. There’d be nothing shocking or risky about serving this cheese to unfamiliar guests; with a slightly nutty flavour it’s a real crowd pleaser.

    The Luigi Guffanti Taleggio from Lombardy in Italy is next. This washed rind cheese is my least favourite of all the cheeses today. Not because it’s bad – it has an interesting, slightly grainy texture, and a mellow taste – but because I find the others more interesting. On the other hand, Mr Hungry Australian adores this cheese and pronounces it to be his favourite. As he eats the Taleggio, he keeps making whimpering noises and while his eyes roll back in his head. I’m slightly embarrassed to be seen with him.

    But then a washed rind cheese, the Soumaintrain from Burgundy in France, is next, and now it’s my turn to whimper. I love this strong-smelling cheese. It’s voluptuous and dreamy, oozing languorously on my cheese board like a starlet draped over an unmade bed in a Vanity Fair shoot. It has a delicate, slightly sweetish flavour and is the kind of cheese that I would eat non-stop until forcibly restrained.

    We finish with a bang. A bleu bang, that is. The Herve Mons Roquefort AOC is a fitting finale to what has been an extaordinary selection of cheeses. We’re big fans of blue cheese – we regularly buy another blue, the Blue Castello, which is a creamy, mild blue cheese.

    But the Herve Mons is in a different class altogether. It grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shakes you around while turning out your pockets in a civilised, European way. It’s ferociously strong and tangy – Valerie suggests teaming it with honey or pear to tone it down a little or crumbling some through a salad. I am reminded of the sensational Gorgonzola Dolce I recently ate at Kingley’s Steak and Crabhouse in Sydney (see review here), which was served with honey, fresh apple, walnuts and toasted fruit bread.

    Top cheese tips:

    • For a cheeseboard – have segments of one soft, one hard or semi-hard and one blue cheese as a minimum. Add a washed rind for interest. Alternatively, serve only one complete cheese as a centrepiece. If you do, go for something really spectacular – the staff at The Smelly Cheese Shop can advise.
    • Take your cheese out of the fridge an hour before serving it so it can warm up to room temperature. This greatly enhances the taste, aroma and texture of the cheese.
    • Arrange your cheese on the board from mildest to strongest, and let guests know in which order to eat them. For example, once you’ve eaten a blue cheese your taste buds can’t really cope with anything else so save this for last.
    • Serve with crackers and/or fresh bread and quince paste, dried figs and slices of fresh pear or apple.

    The Smelly Cheese Shop’s Cheese Appreciation Masterclass has been a fantastic experience. I have a newfound respect for cheese-makers and a solid appreciation of just how much work goes into making an artisan cheese. I’ve learned about the different types of cheese, sampled some excellent fromage and learned how to select and eat cheese at home.

    So with Christmas just around the corner, a gift voucher for a 2012 Cheese Appreciation Masterclass (usually $70 per person) would make a fantastic present for any cheese lovers you know.

    As for my husband, well, if he keeps behaving badly then he will get a pair of socks this year. However, if he is good, I know just what to buy him: a hunk of Luigi Guffanti Taleggio.

    The Smelly Cheese Shop
    Shop 44 Adelaide Central Market
    Gouger Street
    Adelaide SA 5000
    Phone: +61 8 8231 5867

  • Neil Perry Chucks a (Sustainable Spencer Gulf) Prawn on the Barbie

    Last Wednesday I joined Neil Perry (Rockpool, Spice Temple and The Waiting Room), the Spencer Gulf and West Coast Prawn Fishermens Association, the MSC, the WWF, national and local media, bloggers, and seafood industry heavyweights for lunch  to celebrate the first MSC certified sustainable Spencer Gulf king prawn catch of the season.

    Why the  fuss? Well, MSC is the Marine Stewardship Council, an international body recognising and rewarding sustainable fishing. When a fishery has received the prestigious MSC certification it means that buyers can be assured that the fishery meets strict standards regarding sustainability and traceability.

    The certification covers the fishery’s 39 vessels, which use the otter trawling method to catch around 2,000 metric tonnes of King Prawns each year. The wild caught prawns are sold mostly to markets in Australia and America, and also to South East Asia and the EU.

    Australia-wide there are only a handful of fisheries to be MSC certified, including SA’s Lakes and Coorong Fishery, which was certified in 2008. But more significantly, the Spencer Gulf Prawn Association is the first prawn fishery to be MSC certified in the Asia Pacific and the first king prawn fishery to be certified in the world. So the Spencer Gulf prawn fisherman have every reason to be proud of their latest achievement.

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  • Kingsley’s Steak and Crabhouse, Wooloomooloo, Sydney

    As the final official event of Eat Drink Blog 11, the second Australian Food Bloggers Conference, we have dinner at Kingley’s Steak and Crabhouse at Wooloomooloo. Deciding not to go to my hotel between the conference and the dinner, I catch a taxi to the restaurant with Jan from Dinner in Ten Minutes, Jo from My Delicious Blog and Ashley from I’m so Hungreee.

    We have about 45 minutes to kill before dinner so we order drinks. It is a perfect evening for a Mojito.

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  • Eat Drink Blog 11, the Australian Food Bloggers’ Conference, Sydney

    Last Thursday, I was thrilled to receive an email asking me if I was interested in a last-minute spot at Eat Drink Blog 11, to be held that Saturday in Sydney. I immediately responded ‘yes’ and did a happy dance to the tune of Bobby Brown’s ‘Can’t Touch This’.

    What was I so excited? Well Eat Drink Blog 11 was only the second Australian Food Bloggers Conference, following up from the inaugural conference in Melbourne last year. It’s an invite-only conference and only 80+ spots were offered Australia-wide, so I was extremely grateful to be invited, especially as The Hungry Australian is so new. (As it turns out, I was only one of two bloggers from Adelaide to attend, the other being Amanda from Lambs Ears & Honey.)

    Eat Drink Blog 11 was organised by an amazing volunteer committee, including Jen from Jenius, Trina from The Gourmet Forager and Simon from The Heart of Food, who spent hundreds of (unpaid) hours putting together an event with an incredible lineup of speakers and sponsors.

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  • A Seafood Extravaganza: Launch of the Eyre Peninsula Seafood Guide at Jolley’s Boathouse

    Seafood is one of my ultimate feasts. It’s both a must for extravagant celebrations and everyday family life. However, it must be fresh and it must be top quality.

    Luckily, I live in Adelaide, South Australia (SA), where our seafood is amongst the finest in the world, largely because our waters are pristine and well-managed and our growers take immense pride in their work. Our seafood commands premium prices in Hong Kong, China and Japan: buyers and restaurants love our seafood because of its exceptional quality.

    So you can imagine how happy I was to attend the industry launch of the Eyre Peninsula Seafood Guide at Jolley’s Boathouse last Monday.

    The Seafood of the Eyre Peninsula is a beautifully designed, step by step guide explaining what to look for when buying seafood and how to clean and prepare it. Designed to educate and inform chefs, kitchen staff, restaurant managers and retailers, it features stunning shots of seafood by local Adelaide photographer Randy Larcombe.

    If you’re a professional or student chef or restauranteur, I urge you to get your hands on a copy of The Seafood of the Eyre Peninsula. See the Seafood Frontier website to download a copy or have one sent to you.

    Before the official proceedings begin, we are treated to a delicious selection of Jolley’s Boathouse canapés. It’s an extravaganza of SA seafood.

    Firstly, I have to try the Angasi oysters supplied by Pristine Oysters on behalf of the South Australian Oyster Growers Association. Our original natives, Angasis were fished to extinction in the late 1800s and replaced with Pacific oysters – Australian growers have only recently been producing them again. Angasi shells are much rounder and flatter than the Pacifics with beautiful caramel and coffee tones. Brendan Guidera from Pristine shows us the correct way to shuck them – apparently, it’s all about the 2pm knife position.

    I add a spritz of fresh lemon, then tip the shell up so that the Angasi oyster slides into my mouth. I savour it for a minute, chewing gently before letting it slide down my throat. While Pacific oysters are creamy and fresh tasting, Angasis have an earthier, more full-bodied flavour. I fall instantly in love with them.

    Then it’s onto the King George Whiting ceviche (whiting courtesy Port Lincoln Fresh Fish) and Southern Bluefish Tuna crudo (tuna courtesy Southern Water Marine Products). Both are immaculately fresh and tangy with citrus and vinegar.

    One of Jolley’s chefs prepares exquisite sashimi and crudo from Hiramasa kingfish (supplied by Cleanseas Tuna) and snapper (supplied by Port Lincoln Fresh Fish). The fish is exquisitely delicate and flavoursome. The chef grates fresh wasabi from a whole wasabi root to accompany the sashimi and the taste is a revelation. I will never, ever go back to eating that lurid green ‘wasabi’ paste again with my sashimi. If that means I have to move the family to Japan then that is what I will do.

    Next up, blue mussels by Kinkawooka Shellfish and Boston Bay Mussels are covered with a creamy sauce and breadcrumbs before being placed under a hot grill. They’re amazingly tricky to eat – there is simply no graceful way to place a whole breaded mussel in your mouth – but amazingly delicious, too.

    Next come some Chinese spoons filled with stir fried abalone supplied by Streaky Bar Marine Products, shiitake mushrooms, garlic stems and oyster sauce. Like most Chinese, I adore abalone’s distinctive and delicate flavour, and silky smooth flesh.

    I next spot some interesting looking snapper tartare made from snapper supplied by Port Lincoln Fresh Fish.

    I’m beginning to feel uncomfortably full but I have to try the grilled, Thai-style skewers using Southern Calamari supplied by Streaky Bay Marine Products. They’re absolutely delicious. The calamari is so tender that I barely have to chew, and is set off superbly by a lemongrass and lime marinade and sweet chilli dipping sauce.

    Lastly, the helpful waiting staff emerge with some gorgeous Spencer Gulf King Prawns supplied by Austar Seafood on behalf of the Spencer Gulf & West Coast Prawn Fishermens Association. Served simply with a seafood sauce, they are astonishingly good.

    It’s now time for the speeches. Mark Cant (Regional Development Australia Whyalla and Eyre Peninsula), Tony Ford (Boston Bay Wines), John Susman (Fishheads Seafood Strategy) and Stacey Fallon (RDAWEP) deliver some surprisingly relaxed, passionate and even occasionally witty speeches. It’s clear that this is a tight-knit industry where everybody knows each other very well. Then the Hon. Gail Gago, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, declares The Seafood of the Eyre Peninsula to be officially launched.

    Shortly after, I make my way home, full to the gills with what feels like a kilogram of exceptional seafood. Despite my discomfort, I’m already thinking about what I am going to cook for dinner tomorrow night.

    One thing’s for sure: SA seafood will definitely be on the menu.

  • Meet a Food Lover: Alister Haigh of Haigh’s Chocolates

    When I was a girl I used to have a number of regular day-dreams.

    One favourite involved me getting accidentally locked in a chocolate factory overnight. I used to spend hours thinking about sampling all the different kinds of chocolates rolling off the conveyor belts. Would I try a soft centre first? Or perhaps a caramel? What about a truffle or a chocolate frog? How many could I possibly eat before I was sick?

    Roald Dahl’s wonderful book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, did nothing to quench my imagination. On the contrary, it encouraged me to dream of rivers of molten chocolate, trees made out of candy and bubblegum that turned your whole body blue.

    So when I visited Haigh’s Chocolates earlier this week for a special behind the scenes look at the factory and an interview with Alister Haigh, I was nearly beside myself with excitement.

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  • Food for New Parents

    Our good friends, Kerina and Ollie, have just become the proud parents of a beautiful little boy.

    I’m thrilled for them. As new parents, they’ve embarked on an incredible journey, one that will bring them more joy and happiness than they could have ever imagined. Their hearts will expand, be made light again. They’ll learn to adjust their pace to a toddler’s ramble and to see the world through the eyes of a child once more – all enormous gifts.

    It will also be challenging at times. They’ll be pushed beyond what they thought were their limits of endurance and patience. They’ll have to get by with less sleep and less money. The awesomeness of their new responsibility will sometimes feel overwhelming.

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  • A Celebration of Cheese at CheeseFest

    Australia’s largest cheese festival, CheeseFest, took place last weekend at Rymill Park in Adelaide.

    We arrived just after midday on Sunday and got stuck straight into the serious business of the day: sampling and learning about all the wonderful cheeses and dairy products on display from companies including Barossa Valley Cheese CompanyB.-d. Farm Paris CreekIsland PureLa Casa Del FormaggioMilawa Cheese CompanyUdder DelightsWarrnambool Cheese and Butter and Woodside Cheese Wrights.

    I’m in fromage heaven.

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  • The Best of the Adelaide Good Food and Wine Show

    For those keen on good food and wine, the cunningly named Good Food & Wine Show on October 7-9 at the Wayville Showgrounds in Adelaide was a great day out.

    You could sample food and wine from some of South Australia’s leading producers, watch cooking demonstrations, learn about cheese or chocolate, take part in a wine tasting, get up close and personal with a celebrity chef in the kitchen, buy products at special prices and then relax and recharge in the Coopers beer garden.

    Final numbers are still coming in but it looks like the second Adelaide Good Food & Wine Show was attended by 12,000+ people over the three days, a strong increase from last year’s inaugural Show.

    Rather than try to summarise the whole Show, which would be a very long post, I’ve decided to highlight some of the producers, products and chefs that caught my eye.

    First up is Murray River Salt, renowned for its award-winning, naturally pink salt flakes. We got a sneak peak of their latest creation, Truffle Salt, which takes their regular pink salt and soups it up by impregnating it with the scent of truffles. The smell is completely intoxicating – I can imagine this would be incredible on scrambled eggs. Truffle Salt is still in the development stage but should be available to buy in the next few months.

    Many Adelaideans know Enzos on Port Road, the fine Italian restaurant serving up wonderful pastas, risottos and steaks. However, Enzos is just about to launch an Enzos at Home line producing pasta and other dishes for you to heat up at home. We try the lasagne and the gluten-free muffins and both are extremely good – I can’t even tell that the muffin is gluten-free and I’ve eaten a lot of gluten-free food. I foresee a bright future ahead for Enzos at Home – pick up some yourself at 302 Port Road from tomorrow.

    ChocoMe is a brand new company producing custom Belgian chocolate. Andrea Simko, a trained pastry chef who used to work for one of Hungary’s leading restaurants, first spotted ChocoMe’s products in Hungary a year ago. She loved the products so much that she contacted ChocoMe’s founder and an agreement was reached so that she could open ChocoMe in Adelaide under a franchise agreement. Chocolate can be bought in the ready-made flavours or you can design your own combination of dark, milk or white chocolate, sprinkled with all kinds of freeze-dried fruits, seeds, nuts, flowers, confectionary and spices. ChocoMe’s products will be available to buy from their website from next week and can also be found at Viva in North Adelaide and Burnside, the National Wine Centre, Mercato, Unley Gourmet, and Gourmet on Main.

    Created by Vicki Mattchett, a Cordon Bleu trained chef based  at Middleton, South Australia, Mattchett’s is a boutique producer making a selection of chutneys, sauces, dukkahs, dressings and olive products. Matchett’s packaging is bright and cheerful but also serious and grown up. It’s a line with a lot of personality. I especially like the tagline on their Chilli Fire relish below: “very friggin’ hot.” Take a bow, Matchett’s.

    Preshafruit make fresh juices and fruit coulis that have been pressurised cold (not heat pasteurised), which preserves flavour, texture, colour and smell. Their packaging is modern, slick and playful, with a different animal on each container. I also like the quasi DIY label gun font and design. Nice work, fellas. We try the grapefruit juice and it’s absolutely delicious. I’d definitely buy Preshafruit juices again.

    Kyton’s Bakery is renowned for their award-winning lamingtons, which are hugely popular with fundraising groups. My beautiful niece gives them two thumbs up.

    Hailing from Muswellbrook in NSW, Pukara Estate make excellent, award-winning olive oils, relishes, mayonaises and dukkahs. I don’t sample them myself but Mr Hungry Australian raves about their mayonaise.

    Cocolat is an Adelaide success story. Established in 1992, the family owned company operates three busy stores – Rundle Street in the city, Adelaide Airport and Balhannah in the Adelaide Hills – serving up chocolate in just about every conceiveable form. Their Rocky Road is delicious. And just a little bit addictive.

    Beach Organics, located near Middleton and Port Elliot in South Australia, produce a line of organic spices, oils, salts, and breads. It’s founder, Barry Beach, manages the strictly organic, 4-acre property using permaculture techniques and also runs cooking workshops and garden tours. After seeing their gorgeous products I’m planning a day trip there.

    Popular Indian restaurant Dhaba at The Spice Kitchen in Leabrook produces a range of readymade spice mixes including Tandoori, Vindaloo and an Easy Best of the South mix. I’m going to a farewell there in a few weeks time so will post about my dining experience then.

    Although I love an occasional glass of wine or bubbles, my Asian genes and inability to metabolise alcohol without becoming bright red and itchy (not a great look) means that I am rarely in the market for a good bottle of wine. So I merely stroll through the wine exhibitors, organised by growing region.

    I also poke my head into the Reidal Wine Theatre, where keen wine lovers are being tutored through a tasting of some great Australian wines.

    I then duck into the Fisher & Paykel Celebrity Theatre to find Matt Moran (MasterChef, Aria) wowing the crow with his knife work. His salmon looks simple but stunning – something you could easily try yourself at home. That, I guess, is the point of these cooking demonstrations: to encourage people to get into the kitchen and try cooking like a MasterChef at home.

    Next up is Alastair McLeod (Queensland’s Bretts Wharf and Tank Restaurant), who does a great job whipping the crowd into a frenzy for the next presenter, Ainsley Harriot.

    UK chef Harriot is the star import of the day, the granddaddy of them all. The original celebrity chef with the longest running cooking TV show in the world, he has sold over 4 million books worldwide. He also has some funky dance moves.

    Ainsley is enormously popular with the crowd, who hang on his every suggestive word.

    After Ainsley I’m in need of lunch. I head outside to the Cooper’s Beer Garden where folks are enjoying the beautiful weather and great music.

    With so many exhibitors I wasn’t able to make it around to everyone so if you don’t see your favourite company or Chef here, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t like their work. So feel free to comment below on who I should have included here. I was reliably informed, for example, that Manu Feildel had women swooning in the aisles during his cooking demonstration. I can understand this: a man who can cook is very, very sexy.

    The Good Food & Wine Show will take place again in Adelaide in October 2012.

    Christina Soong-Kroeger attended the Adelaide Good Food & Wine Show as a guest of the show. 

  • Cibo Espresso, Henley Beach

    My daughter is starting school next week and I’m excited and a little melancholy.

    On one hand, she is completely ready for school – she craves stimulation and learning and she’s happy because she has a bunch of pals from kindergarten starting with her. On the other hand, it’s a milestone for her, the first independent step in a journey that may one day take her far away from us.

    So my daughter going to school represents a big change for us.

    I’d deliberately kept one day free this week so that we could do something together just as a family. I asked Ms 5 Year Old what she wanted to do and she replied without hesitation: “go to Henley Beach and ride bikes and get baby cinos and ice creams.”

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  • Australian MasterChef finalist Alvin Quah accused of plagiarism by Rasa Malaysia’s Bee Yinn Low – UPDATED

    Australian MasterChef series 2 finalist, Alvin Quah – he of the funky white glasses and cropped ‘do – has been accused of plagiarising a recipe by Bee Yinn Low from Asian food blog, Rasa Malaysia, on his own blog, Cinnamon Pig.

    Rasa Malaysia is the biggest independent Asian recipes site on the internet, receiving 2.5 million page views and 600,000+ visitors per month. Low’s first cookbook, Easy Chinese Recipes, has just been released worldwide and went to #1 on Amazon.com’s chinese cookbook category.

    Quah’s recipe for Black Sesame Dumplings in Ginger Syrup, posted July 2011, bears a striking resemblance to Low’s Black Sesame Dumplings (Tang Yuan), posted April 5th, 2009.

    Two hours ago, On Monday 3rd October at approximately 10am Adelaide time, Low tweeted this from her @rasamalaysia Twitter account:

    @cinnamonalvin WOW u took my Black Sesame Dumplings recipe, copied it word-by-word w/ minor changes & made it on national TV with no credit?

    Quah immediately tweeted back:

    @rasamalaysia hey bee, is it a mistake? I promise it’s mine. No copying here. Mum use to make it for me.

    But Low was not convinced it was a mistake, tweeting back:

    My recipe: bit.ly/8aCJz. @cinnamonalvin ‘s recipe:cinnamonpig.com.au/?p=1260.Ur mom wrote the recipe the same way as I do, word by word?!

    This was shortly followed by:

    Guilty as charged, @cinnamonalvin has just blocked me.

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  • Red Door Bakery, Croydon

    Mmmmm. I breathe in deeply, inhaling the irresistible smell of bread baking and sugar caramellising. Does anything smell better than this?

    I’m in the kitchen at Red Door Bakery in Croydon, watching owner & baker Gareth Grierson blowtorching crème brulee tarts. First, the tart is sprinkled with sugar, then Grierson leisurely torches it until the sugar blisters and caramelises. It’s a process that he repeats three times for each tart to ensure that the toffee layer is thick and crisp.

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  • Wild Olives at the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers’ Market

    Aren’t these the most gorgeous olives you’ve ever seen?

    They’re wild olives marinated in lemon pepper, garlic, oregano, vinegar, sea salt and extra virgin olive oil from South Australian producer, Patlin Gardens. My brother bought them for us from the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers’ Market.

    I’ve never eaten wild olives before but I’m now a convert. They’re teensy compared to the olives you usually find in the supermarket or gourmet store – only about 1 cm in length – and they’re just so beautiful.

    However, it’s how they taste that really blows me away. Patlin Gardens use a traditional salt treatment to cure their olives. The lemony marinade is flavoursome and yet beautifully mild, so you can really taste the delicate flavour of the olives coming through. Some canned or bottled olives taste mostly of brine, which is a real shame.

    Patlin Gardens have just one of the 100 stalls at the weekly farmer’s market at the Adelaide Showgrounds. Many of SA’s leading food producers are regular stallholders – check out who will be there this week here.

    I’ll be there, pottering around the stalls and happily breathing in the sights, sounds and smells.

    Adelaide Showground Farmers Market
    Every Sunday from 9am – 1pm.
    P: 08 8231 8155
    Enter via Leader St, Goodwood

    PS Isn’t this a stunning bowl? I saw it at Better World Arts in Port Adelaide and couldn’t resist. The artwork is by Aboriginal artist, Ruth Napaljarri Stewart.

  • Foraging: crabbing at Semaphore Jetty

    Every summer my dad and his friends go crabbing. Creeping out of the house in the early hours of the morning they drive to an undisclosed location, launch their boat and crab for hours. They then return home around midday sunburned, smelly and triumphant – their record is an amazing 120 crabs.

    After beers to cool off, they cook the crabs in enormous pots and woks on outdoor stoves. It’s a day of feasting and celebrating; home gardeners and hunter gatherers know that food tastes better when you’ve grown or caught it yourself.

    I’ve never been invited to one of these outings but the other day my dad mentioned that he and one of his friends were going crabbing off the Semaphore jetty. (Semaphore is a lovely beachside suburb west of Adelaide, about 25 minutes from the city. Check out my review of Semaphore cafe, Whipped, here.)

    I was keen to see how they did crabbing off a jetty so asked if we could come along. Dad was meeting his friend at 4:30am there so I said we’d be along as soon as the kids were up – usually around 6am, thanks to Master Toddler.

    That morning we all slept in but we were at the jetty by 7:15am. It was a beautiful morning.

    It wasn’t long before we spotted a familiar face – my dad. As he’d been there since 4:30am he was still rugged up to the nines, almost unrecognisable in his deer hunter hat, anorak and ugg boots (thankfully not in shot).

    We continued on our way to the end of the jetty, passing a lone fisherman who wasn’t having much luck, and a beautiful pelican.

    We met up with Uncle Teck Ho, my Dad’s mate who is also from Malaysia. Uncle Teck Ho is an amazing gardener – every time he visits my parents he brings them huge bags of fruit and vegetables from his garden.

    We checked out the crab nets. Nowadays my dad and his friends use carp heads to bait the crab nets. They used to use chicken but this is now banned as the fishing authorities were worried that chicken would attract sharks.

    Last time they went crabbing off the Semaphore Jetty, my dad’s friends caught 20 crabs. But today, despite the choppy water which is apparently good for crabbing, they only caught four: two blue crabs and two sand crabs.

    We weren’t disappointed by the small catch though. It was lovely to be down at the beach so early in the morning and watch the sun coming up over the horizon. With so few people around, it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves – a rare gift.

    We took the four crabs home and cooked them up. As there were so few we decided to make crab dip.

  • The Big Cheese: CheeseFest October 2011

    Down here in South Australia we like to do things in a big way. The Big Orange at Berri. The Big Rocking Horse in the Adelaide Hills. The Big Lobster in Kingston. I’m not sure what that says about our state psyche but we like to make a noticeable splash.

    We’re not just talking about fibreglass and steel tourist attractions either. The Adelaide Fringe is Australia’s largest arts festival while our festival of cheese, CheeseFest, is Australia’s #1 cheese festival.

    Created a mere six years ago by Founder/Director Kris Lloyd (manager and head cheesemaker of Woodside Cheese Wrights), CheeseFest is an outdoor festival at Rymill Park that showcases South Australia’s and Australia’s wonderfully talented cheese producers. You can enjoy cheese sampling, cheese cooking, cheese making demonstrations and even cheese master classes.

    Celebrity Chefs appearing this year include patron Simon Bryant (The Cook and the Chef, ex The Hilton), Callum Hann (MasterChef 2010 runner up) and Paul Wood (My Kitchen Rules).

    CheeseFest 2011 is showcasing a wonderful lineup of food and wine producers:

    Cheese stalls

    Food stalls

    Beverage Stalls

    See you there.

    CheeseFest 2011
    Saturday October 15 12.30pm – 7pm & Sunday 16 October 11.00am – 6.00pm
    Rymill Park, Adelaide City
    Cost: $15 Entry one day or $25 two day pass (includes Official CheeseFest souvenir wine glass, cheese tastings, cooking demonstrations, Coles Alfresco Club. Tickets available from Venue Tix or at the gate (children U12 and accompanied by an adult free)

  • Torrens Island Market, Port Adelaide

    Adelaide is blessed with a number of fantastic markets. Last weekend we wanted to buy some fruit and veg so decided to check out the Torrens Island Market, situated along the Port River,

    Getting to the Torrens Island Market is a bit of an adventure. It’s not that far away from Adelaide – about 30 minutes from the city – but after you drive through Port Adelaide it feels like you’re travelling through an industrial wasteland to get there.

    The Torrens Island Market a small but busy outdoor market with about 40 stalls selling fruit and vegetables direct from the farm and fisherman selling fish directly from their boats.

    Most of the stalls sell fruit and vegetables. The quality varies a bit but then so do the prices. You can buy by the kilo or by the box or sack. We scored some excellent tomatoes for only $1.50/kg, a whole cauliflower for $2 and zucchini and Lebanese cucumbers for only $2/kg. Other prices were comparable to supermarket specials e.g. bananas at $7.99/kg and potatoes at 99c/kg.

    There is a bakery stall selling ciabatta, turkish bread, pizza, croissants, danishes, rolls and pide.

    There are a couple of stalls selling olives, smallgoods, nuts, and eggs.

    Rose trees and fresh flowers are sometimes available but the selection is limited.

    One of the best things about the Torrens Island Market is being able to buy fish and seafood direct from the fishermen. The fishermen moor their boats on the North Arm Fishermen’s Wharf and sell directly from their boats.


    You can also buy freshly shucked oysters for $12/dozen (or $10/dozen unshucked).


    Pelicans hung around the fishing boats, hoping to be fed.

    One thing the Torrens Island Market is crying out for is some hot food vendors. There is nothing here to eat except buns and pizza from the bakery. Moreover, there is only one vendor selling hot drinks and ice creams. Someone should open a dim sim stall or a sausage stand – they would make an absolute killing.

    The Torrens Island Market is not a fancy market. There are no gourmet delicacies, handmade clothes or scented soaps. It does fruit, veg and seafood, and not much else. If that’s what you’re after and you are happy to shop seasonally and spontaneously, you can certainly bag some bargains here. However, you might want to eat breakfast before you come.

    Torrens Island Market
    Moorhouse Road via the Grand Trunkway
    North Arm
    Port Adelaide, South Australia
    Open every Sunday from 6am – 1pm 

  • The Cooks Pantry, Grange

    Situated on Jetty Street in Grange, The Cooks Pantry is one of those rare neighbourhood cafes that is everything a good local hangout should be.

    Everything has been thoughtfully put together here. From the stylish and practical outdoor seating to the range of mouth-watering take home gourmet food on offer, The Cooks Pantry has clearly been a labour of love for owner James Bodroghy. A professional chef who has opened and run a number of Adelaide restaurants (Henley on Sea, Sixty Six in, Mesa Lunga, Salt and Esca), Bodhroghy opened The Cooks Pantry around three years ago so he could better balance his family and work.

    The Cooks Pantry offers a range of light meals including foccacias, omelettes, salads, tarts and cakes.

    The Cooks Pantry also sells a range of gourmet take home dinners for those who like to eat well but are pressed for time.

    Bodhroghy’s passion for using local produce, organic products and quality ingredients is clearly evident. The Cooks Pantry stocks their own range of relishes, pickles and sauces, as well as a selection of cheeses, Paris Creek dairy products and seasonal organic fruit and vegetables.

    I seem to have developed a semi-serious chai latte addiction so ordered two for my husband and I and baby cinos for the kids. The chai latte was so dark it resembled hot chocolate and was the best I’ve had in a a long time. To make it, The Cooks Pantry mixes warm milk with 3 teaspoons of David Rio’s dairy-free Power Chai, made from a combination of evaporated cane juice, tea, cinnamon, clove, ginger, cardamom, and salt. Power Chai is available from Rio Coffee in Stepney.

    The kids enjoyed their baby cinos, but then, they always do.

    Proving that multi-taskers do it all at once, The Cooks Pantry also runs cooking classes and offers catering services for private functions.

    All in all, I liked The Cooks Pantry very much. Check it out.

    The Cooks Pantry
    6 Jetty Road, Grange, South Australia
    Tel: 08 8353 3626
    Email: food@thecookspantry.com.au
    Opening Hours: Monday – 9am to 4.00pm; Tuesday to Friday – 9am to 6.30pm; Saturday – 8am to 4pm.

    The Cooks Pantry on Urbanspoon

  • Family Fun at the Royal Adelaide Show

    When I was a young girl my parents took my brother and I to the Adelaide Royal Show every year without fail. As we were only allowed two showbags each, my brother and I spent days comparing the relative merits of different showbags, using a complicated formula I would be hard pressed to recreate today. The day itself was spent wandering through the animal enclosures, marvelling at the prize-winning produce, watching the various demonstrations, going on a ride or two and oohing and ahhing at the fireworks display.

    Every year we indulged in the kind of food you only ever eat an outdoor fair: fairy floss, chips in cups and dagwood dogs. For those unfamiliar with dagwoods, they are a frankfurter stuck on a wooden (dagwood) stick, dipped in batter, deep-fried and plunged into a vat of tomato sauce. They’re really quite dreadful but as kids we used to love them and begged for them every year.

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  • Whipped, Semaphore

    Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside. Oh, I do like to be beside the sea.

    Except when it’s freezing and blowing a minor gale. Unfortunately, yesterday was such a day.

    I’d been misled by the bright Spring sunshine into thinking it would be a great idea to take the kids riding their bikes along the Semaphore promenade. However, when we got there, the sun snuck behind a massive cloud bank and refused to come out. Instantly, any warmth disappeared.

    Then my kids spotted the playground on the foreshore of Semaphore beach. So we spent 10 minutes shivering on the swings and turning blue on the slide before I shouted, “enough!” and carried my screaming toddler off the swing.

    Holding my still protesting toddler in my arms, we left the playground on foot and set off in search of warmth and shelter. Luckily, we weren’t far from Whipped on Semaphore Road.

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  • Throwing a kid’s birthday party without losing your mind

    Children’s birthday parties often start with squeals of delight and joyful anticipation but end in tears and swearing. From mum and dad, I hasten to add.

    You see, us Generation X parents always want to do our best for our kids. Our mothers made us every single cake from The Australian Women’s Weekly Cake Cookbook when we were growing up and we feel responsible for ensuring our own kids have those same special memories of their birthdays.

    So, yes, we can get carried away. Been there, done that, had the breakdown over the icing that wouldn’t set.

    But this year I got smart. I managed to pull off a 5 year old party for 20 children with a fully home cooked menu without breaking a sweat, a nail or a plate over somebody’s head (usually, my unfortunate husband). A first for me.

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  • Postcard from Malaysia

    8 days in Malaysia = 40 meals = me coming home with an extra 3 kgs around my waist.

    Was it worth it? Oh, yeah. Because Malaysia is a foodie’s paradise. There’s just so much good stuff to eat there.

    Malaysia boasts a wonderful mix of Malaysian, Indian and Chinese food, along with the intriguing Nonya style of cooking, which blends Chinese ingredients and cooking techniques with Malaysian spices. The result of intermarriage between early Chinese migrants and local Malays, Nonya cooking features heavy use of coconut milk, candlenut, galangal, belachan, sambal, tamarind, asam flower (torch ginger), lemongrass, and pandan leaves.

    Food in Malaysia is cheap and readily available at all times of the day and night. Whenever I had a craving for fried noodles at 10pm at night I could always find a hawker stall within a 5 minutes walk of wherever I was. Love that convenience.

    So what were our favourite dishes? Well, we ate a LOT of good food there but these dishes below were the stand outs. If you’re visiting Malaysia, or eating at a Malaysian/Asian restaurant you must try some of these. Luckily, we have some fantastic Malaysian restaurants in Australia so I don’t have to wait another year until my next fix.

    I don’t have photos of everything we ate unfortunately – travelling with two small children meant that the best laid plans often went out the window. But that’s life with small children for you.

    PS Watch out for an upcoming post about the Soong family in Malaysia and my grandmother’s asam laksa recipe.

    HITS

    1) My top Malaysian dish is Penang’s signature noodle soup, the Asam Laksa. Both my husband and I are completely addicted to this chill-hot, tamarind-sour, asam (ginger) flower-tinged fish noodle soup. I can honestly say I never get enough of this dish. It’s the most marvellous combination of flavours – the fresh pineapple, onion and mint cut through the strong fishy flavour making it all at once savoury, sour, sweet, hot and salty. I find it endlessly satisfying.

    2) Hot on the heels of the Asam Laksa is the Char Kway Teow (Fried Noodles). Simple to prepare (watch out for an upcoming recipe), these noodles are pretty much universally beloved. Prawns, sliced fish cake and cockles are fried with garlic and sambal chilli before being mixed with fresh flat rice noodles, spring onions and fresh bean sprouts. Soya sauce is added for flavour and then an egg is cracked into the wok, allowed to partly set and then mixed through the noodles. This was my preferred choice for supper every night.

    3) Chicken Rice or Pork Rice are also firm favourites of ours. Chicken Rice is either roasted or poached chicken served with chicken flavoured rice (rice cooked in chicken stock). Hainese Chicken Rice is of course the ultimate chicken rice – tender poached chicken is served with chicken rice and a bowl of clear soup, and accompanied by a fresh gremolta-esque sauce made with ginger and spring onions and a fresh garlic chilli sauce. My children love chicken rice – when we were in Malaysia they had it at least once a day.

    Pork Rice is roasted pork (either Char Siew style or roasted style as per below) served with plain rice. The belly pork is tender and juicy while the skin is crunchy and salty. Not surprisingly, my kids loved this, too.

    4) The better known laksa, Laska Lemak or Curry Laksa, is also a favourite of mine. A coconut curry soup is poured over hokkein or rice noodles (or a mixture of both), fried tofu puffs, chicken, prawns and fishcake, and garnished with fresh beansprouts, sambal and often, half a boiled egg. It’s a deeply satisfying and filling dish, and hugely popular in Australia.

    5) I never miss eating Satays when I’m visiting Malaysia. I love everything about them – the lemongrass and onion marinade, the tender chicken or beef skewers, the thick, roasted peanut chilli sauce, the cubes of starchy cooked rice and the roughly chopped cucumber and raw Spanish (red) onion that accompanies them.

    6) We had the most marvellous Sui Gao (water dumplings in Cantonese)  at my grandma’s house bought from the local hawker place. The pastry was beautifully light, and the filling was a wonderful combination of pork, carrot, Chinese mushroom, crispy water chestnut, vermicelli, and spring onions. It was so good I am determined to make them at home – watch out for an upcoming recipe.

    7) Congee or Chinese porridge (we call it by its Cantonese name, Jook Jook) is readily available throughout Malaysia. Rice is cooked in lots of water with ginger until it breaks down, becoming like thick soup. Then shredded meat (chicken, pork or beef), seafood (dried scallops and prawns) or century year old eggs are added before the congee is flavoured with spring onions, white pepper, soy sauce and sesame oil. Dried anchovies and roasted peanuts are also sometimes added. It’s very much Chinese comfort food – people eat it for breakfast, when they’re sick or when they’re feeling fragile.

    8. Dim Sum – Dim Sum is not actually Malaysian but Chinese. My kids loved the siu mai (steamed pork dumpling) and char siu bao (roast pork steamed bun).

    9) Curry Fishballs. I’ve eaten these wandering around night markets in Hong Kong many times but I never expected to see them in Malaysia. But the dim sum seller on Jonker Street in Melaka was selling them as ‘Melaka satay fish balls’ and they were fantastic. In Hong Kong you eat them on a stick but in Melaka you buy them by the cup.

    10) Mee Goreng is a popular dish in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. I quite enjoyed this dish but my two kids refused to eat it. Not sure why but that meant more for me then!

    11) I’ve had Pineapple Tarts many times before but this was the first time I’ve really appreciated them properly. Pineapple tarts are simply a small pastry filled with pineapple jam. But this is so much better than the sum of its parts. For starters, the pastry is gorgeously light and flaky (thanks to the use of lard, not butter) and the homemade jam is fibrous, dense and not overly sweet. It’s a fantastic combination and perfect after a chilli hot meal. Just make sure you eat them outside as they crumble all over your clothes.
    12) Fruit in Malaysia is so good. It’s so flavoursome and sweet because the fruit has been allowed to ripen properly. In Malaysia, fresh juices abound (we love drinking watermelon, sugarcane, carrot, star fruit and coconut juice) while fresh fruit, conveniently peeled, cut up into small pieces and bagged, is available everywhere – a much healthier version of ‘fast food.’ Below are duku langsat and mangosteen from the local market.

    13) Fatty Crab is the name of a well known restaurant that specialises in, you guessed it, crabs. One night my Auntie brought some Fatty Crab chilli crab home. Cooked Singapore style in a thick, sweet chilli gravy, the crabs were absolutely sensational. In the restaurant you can order toast to mop up the gravy – a seemingly unorthodox combination that is just so right.

    14) Peanut Pancake is a sweet, crepe-like snack available at morning markets and at street stalls. A thin batter is poured into a metal mould to make a round crepe shape, and dusted with roasted peanuts, brown sugar, and sweet corn before being folded in half and popped into a paper bag. It’s absolutely delicious and very, very moreish.

    MISSES

    1) I know people who love Popiah. My dad, for instance, always orders this soft spring roll filled with stir-fried and raw vegetables covered with a hoisin-y, peanut-y sauce. But I just don’t get popiah. I eat it and I’m nonplussed. For me, it’s a non-event. And it’s not because I’m not into spring rolls; I adore fresh Vietnamese spring rolls and I’ll eat my mother’s deep-fried Cantonese spring rolls by the plateful. But I just don’t get popiah. So I don’t.

    2) I also don’t understand the fuss about Asam Pedas, which we ate in Melaka. Everyone told us we had to eat this dish in Melaka; my cousins, my aunt, our taxi driver – they were all enthusiastically singing the praises of Asam Pedas. Basically, it’s a piece of fish cooked in an Asam sour thick gravy/soup, served with a plate of plain rice, fried cabbage (very nice, actually), half a boiled egg and raw cucumber slices. The idea is that you mix the gray and fish over the rice as you eat. As I love Asam laksa I was expecting great things from this dish but both my husband and I were distinctly underwhelmed. Put it this way: I’d eat it if there was nothing else available.

    3) Wonton Mein (Wonton Noodles) is available throughout Malaysia but it’s just not very good. I guess I’m a traditionalist when it comes to wonton mein – I expect it to look and taste as it does in Hong Kong, where it originates. The Malaysian versions often introduce rogue ingredients and flavours that I think detract from the simplicity of the dish. You can order wonton mein either wet (in soup) or dry (on a plate with a small bowl of wonton in soup separately). But I would rather order something else in Malaysia.

    4) One of Melaka’s signature dishes, Chicken Rice Balls, also left me unimpressed. Basically, it’s your normal Chicken Rice but the rice is shaped into small balls. The idea is that you can dip these in the sauces and pop them straight into your mouth. But I like dribbling the chicken soup, chilli and spring onion/ginger sauces over my rice and eating it quite wet. So the ball concept just doesn’t appeal to me. My kids, however, loved it.

    5) Now I usually love Roti Canai, an Indian-esque flatbread made freshly before my eyes. And I love dipping it into an curry sauce before stuffing it greedily in my mouth. But my experience one night when we were staying at the Sheraton in Kuala Lumpur has put me off it, at least for now. At 10pm, I’d had a craving for food so ventured out to see what I could find. I ordered some char kway teow from a hawker stall and then a roti canai from an Indian restaurant and it all looked great. But when I got back to the hotel and decanted the curry sauce from it’s plastic bag into a bowl, a big black beetle emerged. Eeeeeewwwww!!! Thankfully, the beetle was dead but it was still disgusting. As the sauce sits in an open warming dish, the beetle must have fallen in sometime during the day. This brings me to my number one tip when eating street food: eat fresh!
  • Adelaide’s best Vietnamese pork roll?

    I love Vietnamese pork rolls. No, let me say that again: I LOVE pork rolls. So when my husband came home raving about a pork roll he’d had for lunch I was naturally intrigued and made him promise to buy me one ASAP.

    I was introduced to my very first pork roll by my good friend, Vi Tran, in the 90s when were both studying Chinese at university. One day she took me to a nondescript bakery on Hanson Road and ordered me a pork roll. Ka-bam!! I was immediately hooked. It was love at first bite.

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  • Sexy Food

    You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

    Some food is just plain, well, sexy.

    I’m talking about food that gets your blood pumping. That makes you sigh with pleasure.

    So what is sexy food? In my (black) book, it’s food that is confident,sensual, special, tantalising, incredibly fresh, and seductive. But it can also be food that is charming, witty or clever – I’m thinking of some of our leadings chefs who devise meals to appeal to our senses of whimsy and humour as well as our tastebuds.

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  • 8 Dishes to Try in Shanghai

    From 2003-2006, my husband and I lived in Shanghai, China. We moved there on his job with a Danish engineering firm, but I also found a great job there and we enjoyed three exciting years. Here’s a photo of me on the Bund when we had just arrived.

    Besides friends, one of the things I miss most about China is the food. The variety of food there was simply phenomenal – all kinds of regional Chinese cuisines and an ever growing number of foreign foods were at our doorstep; we ate from dodgy looking, hole in the wall type neighbourhood joints to the newest 5 star restaurants on the Bund. My German husband developed an obsession with thousand year old eggs and fearlessly tried everything his customers ordered for him at their company dinners. And when we were pulling yet another late night at work, we’d regroup by ordering food delivered from one of our favourite restaurants. It was an amazing life.

    I’m due for another trip to Shanghai soon. Next time I go, this is the food that I will be sure to eat:

    1. Xinjiang Lamb Skewers – cumin-fragranced juicy meat skewers seasoned with chilli and Szechuan peppercorns that numb the lips and mouth. Completely addictive.
    2. Xiao Long Bao @ Din Tai Fung. Din Tai Fung is a very successful Taiwanese franchise that produces to-die-for dumplings. They also make a wonderful tofu and seaweed salad that goes superbly with their Xiao Long Bao (Shanghai dumplings filled with minced pork and a gelatinous ‘soup’ that explodes into your mouth).
    3. Chilli Dumplings @ Crystal Jade, Xintiandi. Crystal Jade is an excellent Cantonese restaurant in the very foreign eating/shopping Xintiandi district. They do wonderful yum cha but it’s always crowded and wait times can be lengthy. Their chilli dumplings are fantastic.
    4. Pork & Preserved Cabbage Noodle Soup. Best eaten at a local Shanghainese restaurant. I make this at home by stir frying garlic and minced pork, tipping in a can of preserved cabbage, and adding lots of water to make a soup. Serve over rice vermicelli with light soy sauce.
    5. Drunken Chicken @ Ye Shanghai. Ye Shanghai is an upmarket Shanghainese restaurant with rather fabulous decor. When I was heavily pregnant with our daughter it was during a hot summer and I developed a fixation for drunken chicken – so cooling, delicately flavoured and protein rich.
    6. Roasted sweet potatoes. In the freezing winters, peddlers roast sweet potatoes on metal drums on the street corners. They’re probably carcinogenic (they are usually burnt quite black on the outside) but they smell just wonderful and I love tearing them open to get at the golden flesh inside.
    7. Garlicky string beans and mashed broad beans @ 1221. 1221 is a favourite expat Shanghainese restaurant (Bill Clinton once ate there). It was one of our standard restaurants to take visiting friends and family and we always ordered the same dishes. Their garlicky beans and cold mashed broad beans are insanely good.
    8. Pavlova at M on the Bund. I know, I know. Pavlova is hardly traditional Chinese fare. But M on the Bund is such a classy restaurant. Created by an Australian chef, Michelle Garnaut (also of M on the Fringe in Hong Kong), M on the Bund is one of those establishment restaurants you just have to visit. The view is to die for and the food is pretty darn good, too. They also run an amazing literary festival that attracts the creme de la creme of the literary world.
  • Hawker Food Hit List

    My father was born in Penang, Malaysia, and his family later moved to Kuala Lumpur. Until I moved overseas, I used to visit Malaysia once a year with my family and food was always a major feature of these trips.

    My Grandmother, my Popo, is an amazing cook. Her version of Asam Laksa (the sour, fish-based noodle soup) is famous amongst our friends, while her fried chicken and congee (thick with shredded chicken, fried onions and anchovies, roasted peanuts and white pepper) take ostensibly simple dishes and turn them into works of art.

    When we’re not eating at Popo’s house, we’re out and about trying hawker stores for the best of Malaysian street food. It’s cheap, plentiful and incredibly tasty. We have our favourite eating places, and visit them each time, smiling when we see the same old familiar hawkers we saw the year before. Many of them specialise in only one dish and that is all they make, day after day and year after year. They’re the ultimate food specialists. You have to admire that dedication to quality and consistency.

    Since we’ve had kids I’ve only been to Malaysia once, when my daughter had just started eating solids. We’re going again in a few weeks and I can’t wait to introduce my kids to Malaysia food. My daughter is now almost 5 years old, old enough to remember this trip, and my 18 month old son, robust enough for a week of eating all types of strange and wonderful food.

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