Baked Half Shell Green Mussels

This is a French provencal recipe which I have modified to suit my family's international and fussy palette. 

Ingredients

60 g of green lipped mussels - some are available cooked frozen with one shell.  If not, get raw chilled mussels, steam lightly with wine and shuck them, discarding one side of the shell with the meat on.

White wine (dry) 300 g

Sauce : chopped shallots, chopped garlic, chopped spring onions, 1/2 cup diced cooked tomatoes, 1/2 lemon juice and zest, chilli powder (to taste), salt, pepper, white wine, olive oil


Herbs Topping : Chopped fresh thyme, tarragon, parsley, dill, sea salt, bread crumbs, butter 


Method

• Fry garlic in olive oil till translucent. Bring the rest of the sauce ingredients to the boil. Add mussel juices (if any left from cooking) or chicken stock. Mix well.  Cool slightly. 

• Preheat oven to 200 C. 

• Arrange mussels on an oven proof tray. Pour sauce over each mussel. 

• Spoon herbs crumb topping. 

• Place mussels carefully into the oven and bake for 5 minutes. 

Christmassy Cranberry Pistachio Log Cookies

The joy of baking for Christmas for yourselves, family and friends. Pretty and delicious - makes a wonderful gift. Nibble on the colourful red and green soft, chewy and yet crunchy aromatic and wholesome biscuits.

This pastry is evolved from shortbread recipe. However, to help all the ingredients bind and stay intact instead of crumbling or melting, egg and fresh milk are added to the dough.

Ingredients

Butter : 1 block (250 g) softened to room temperature (not oily and melting)
Sugar powder or icing sugar 130 g
Castor sugar (white or brown) 30 g
Full cream Milk 1/2 cup
Egg yolk  1 (beaten)
Cranberry 200 g in dried form, soak in a dash brandy,  mix well and let it marinate
Pistachio (raw unsalted) - cut or chop coarsely
Plain flour 320 g
Salt 1 tsp

Simple Steps


Mix butter and sugar till smooth and creamy (easier with electric mixer)


Add vanilla extract and combine. 


Fold in flour and salt mixture gradually and mix well. 


Stir chopped nuts and berries evenly. 


Add milk and egg yolk. Mix well.


Divide dough into two approximately equal portions. Spoon one part onto 2/3 way of a piece of baking paper. Lift up one side, press firmly. Do the same for the other side.  Roll and wrap up the pastry. Press the ends firmly and fold inwards. 


Chill in the fridge for at least two hours. 


Preheat oven till 180 C. Line baking trays with baking paper. 


Cut biscuit dough with a sharp knife into 2.5 cm thickness and place gently on the baking tray.
Repeat with another baking tray. 


Turn down oven heat to 150 after 15 minutes. Turn the cookies over and reverse the original facing of the baking tray. Continue baking for another 10 minutes. 


Makes about 50 cookies.

Japanese / Korean Spring Rolls

My favourite spring rolls, the best in town, could be found in a suburban Japanese / Korean restaurant quite close to home. It's delicious because it tastes like what most doting grandmas or mums would cook for their loved ones on a cold evening or just for snacks to satisfy hunger panks and cravings. No excessive use of salty minced meat, spices and green peas (no-no, that's for curry puffs and samosas only).

Filling : cabbage, carrot, shitake mushroom, yam bean (if available), prawn (can be raw), minced meat (preferably steamed cooked or stir fried beforehand)


Herbs : coriander and spring onions (optional)


Seasoning : soy sauce, pepper, oyster sauce

Assembly : Put filling in an elongated fashion about 1/3 way of the spring roll pastry end 
(The wrapper should be softened from frozen pack and covered with a damp cloth to prevent drying up). 
Roll from one side, Fold the flaps on the adjacent two ends. Continue rolling lengthwise. 


Cooking :  Heat up vegetable oil till 160 degrees Centrigrade. Fry spring rolls on both sides for 3 minutes or till golden and crispy. Place cooked spring rolls on blotting paper to absorb excess oil before serving.


Dipping sauces : worchestershire and sweet chilli

Spicy thick curry in a coconut - seafood or roast duck (Indo-chinese style)

Red curry paste is very versatile for cooking seafood and meat dishes.

Steaming curry in a coconut after a brief stir fry in the sauces not only enhances the visual exotic appeal but keeps the curry warm and more fragrant.

Suitable for cooking seafood (thick soupy hor mok or choo chee curry) or roast duck curry.

This method is especially popular in Thailand and Vietnam.

Berries Trifle for a very merry Christmas

Christmas Down Under is summer. Lots of fresh berries to make attractive and delicious trifle for parties.

Choose an assortment of different coloured berries. Strawberries and blueberries are more hardy, keeps better, and retains their integrity even with a bit of handling and mixing.   Raspberries are refreshing and serve as good antioxidants but they may not withstand longer keeping time. 

Ingredients

Premium Vanilla Custard (Paul's brand is fine and convenient) 500 g  or cook from scratch with 4 yolk & 1 cup milk
Fresh Cream (either whip from scratch or purchase ready dessert cream) 2 cups
1 punnet each of 3 types of berries (blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, mulberry, boysenberry)
Cherries for topping
Quality meringe (or whip egg white till max peak, pipe and bake)
Castor sugar 1/2 cup
Honey 2 TBS
Liquour - cointreau /grand marnier and brandy (any 2 of these will do) 2 TBS each
Chocolate garnache (melt a block of high cocoa chocolate in double boiler, add 2 TBS full cream, brown sugar and one yolk)
Sponge cake or sponge fingers about 200 - 300 g (pannatone Italian cake-bread is handy for this and pudding recipes)

Method

Prepare to layer a large glass transparent bowl (either special large surface uniform trifle bowl or large mixing bowl).

Firstly, line the bottom with chocolate garnache, followed by half of the sponge cake slices or sponge fingers.
Sprinkle some of the liquor on the sponge.

Spoon half of the fruit. Cover with custard.

Place the remaining sponge cake. Repeat : followed by a dash of liquour, fruit and custard.

Sprinkle some castor sugar.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Can be prepared the day before the party and chilled overnight.

When ready to serve, decorate with whipped cream, honey, cherries, mixture of cherries, meringe as topping.

Sticky rice with chicken, mushroom, sausage (claypot or fried/steamed) - Chinese risotto

Sometimes we wonder if the Chinese learned to cook claypot rice and sticky fried / steamed rice from Marco Polo or did the globetrotter(s) bring the idea back to Italy and thus risotto was born.

This is a delicious one-dish meal. It is usually listed on the menu of Asian restaurants as "raw fried glutinous rice". Though simple, it gives out a complexity of aromas from meat, vegetable, seafood and sausages.

No need to pre-soak glutinous rice. The result is soft fluffy but not water logged soggy rice.
A balanced meal, though not extremely "healthy", it is absolutely delicious. 

INGREDIENTS

Glutinous rice - 3 cup

Long grain rice - 1 cup

Chicken stock - 3 cups

Water - 4 TBS

Dried shitake mushrooms - 4 pieces (washed and soaked and sliced into quarters)

Chicken fillet - 200 g (sliced thinly and marinate in soy sauce)

Dried scallop (soak in hot water 3 times for at least 3 hours, discard first round of water)

or dried shrimp (washed and bashed)

Chinese sausages - about 2 sliced diagonally into 6 each (similar to using chorizo for paella)

Garlic (chopped)

Indian small shallot onion (sliced thinly)
Vegetable oil 3 TBS

Seasoning

Soy sauce (2 dark and 1 light)

Pepper to taste

Sesame oil (optional)

Garnish

spring onion slices and fresh coriander
fried garlic and shallot crisp

METHOD

1. Prepare fragrant oil and garlic/shallot crisps but frying gradually heating up garlic and shallot in cold oil. Be careful not to burn the crisp and turn off heat once the colour changes to golden yellow before turning brown as they continue cooking continues in the oil. Remove crisps and put on small serving dish.

2. Fry mushroom, chicken and dried shrimp (if using) till 80 % cooked. Dish up.

3. Add a little more oil to fry glutinous rice (if not using non-stick pot). Add a little water if required. Then add long-grain rice and continue frying till all the grains turn slightly translucent.

4. Add chicken stock to the rice. Mix in prefried mushroom, chicken and dried shrimp.

5. Place sausage slices on top. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes under medium-low heat.

6. Stir the rice mixture. Cover the lid back and cook for another 5 minutes with very low heat.

Acknowledgement : the above recipe is owed to the good advice from my homecook friend Sher who learnt it from her network of masterchefs, followed by lots of experimentation and practice. 

The same principle applies to cooking Asian claypot rice. In this variation, cook as you would boiled rice with additional savoury ingredients. The slightly burnt rice crust at the bottom is fragrant and delicious when mixed with the rest of the rice. Hot water can be added to remove the rice crust and drank as a soup so that nothing is wasted.