shanghai home cooking

It was a pleasure visiting the home of one of my Shanghainese friends, and being served a typical day's homemade meal. Above, the regular wheat noodles that's one of their staples, along with man tou and rice.
He made this laksa soup with tofu and rice noodles for me! I loved it - in fact it was better than malaysian laksa coz it wasn't as oily and fatty! but still with a nice coconut milk fragrance along with the spicy shrimp and chilli flavours.
I don't eat organ meats but here's some sliced liver that his toddler girls were munching as snacks.
and, the most delicious braised beef I've ever had! It was simmered for 2 hours in dark soy sauce, chinese wine, ginger, star anise, cinnamon, sugar and dried orange peel till it was so tender and flavourful. Just a few slices were enough to satisfy because of its intense flavour.
here it is being sliced up!the meat just almost fell apart but with the right texture. The thick, sticky syrupy glaze is from the sugar.
Here're some greens he pulled up from the garden just before stir frying with garlic and oyster sauce. Lovely! So, all these are eaten with rice, or noodles in clear chicken broth.

curry puffs the easy way

These aren't the traditional deep fried ones as I can't bear to deep fry anything [can't bear the thought of using so much oil! and then letting it go to waste!] So, these are made with puff pastry. They don't taste the same as those deep fried ones but just as rich and yummy.First off, I made the filling by dicing potatoes [who'd have thought, this was the hardest part! took me ages to cut potatoes into tiny cubes!] and frying them with onions, chilli powder, curry powder, curry leaves and minced chicken. Malays like putting a bit of sugar into the filling as well, but I left it out.

Then came the ready made puff pastry! [I believe in shortcuts..sometimes..] I just cut them into squares, put some filling on top, then pressed the sides together to make a triangle.
Like these! Then, into the oven at 220C for 15-19 minutes, watching to make sure they don't burn!
and they're done. They're best fresh from the oven, or reheated in a toaster because nobody likes a non-crispy bite of puff pastry.
They're usually eaten for a snack at teatime, but I suppose they could make a lunch with some salad on the side. Or made really tiny for an appetizer.

The recipe can be found here.

ordinary at home stuff

This is part of my kitchen counter. We have very little space so whatever we have, gets put anywhere we can. There was no more space in the fridge for the eggplant so here it is, balancing itself like humpty dumpy....
Our first "attempt" at chicken kurma. It was okay...but not as good as I hoped it would be.

Cantonese cooking - the real deal

This is the food from my so called "heritage" that I never learnt to do,only because eating out was so cheap in Malaysia. Now that I'm here, and missing the food so much... I need to learn it from the experts. This is nothing like the 30 minute recipes we often find in magazines or newspapers, these skills take years to master. This lady in the video looks like my mum from the 80's! Hehe...

I discovered this lady from one of her cookbooks from the 80's that I found at a Salvo's shop in Clayton [I just love shopping at op shops..you never know what you might find!]

souvlaki at Orexi

Orexi cafe in Oakleigh has the best souvlaki ever! It's a corner lot near the intersection to Centro. We had the lamb souvlaki, below.
There was a good meat to veg to pita bread ratio, so that was good, and it came together very well with the yoghurt sauce. The meat was really well seasoned and juicy and it was really good right off the heat with tiny crunchy bits on the edges. It's a nice cozy place to have a Saturday morning coffee and brunch. There're lotsa other Greek things around here like Greek grocery stores selling olives, fetta and dried oregano by the bunch and Greek music stores, so it's fun to come wandering around.

3/18 Eaton St
Oakleigh VIC 3166
(03) 9569 1151

Anshumann Da Dhaba on Clayton Road Part 3

Guess what.....this Saturday morning...we decided to come here again! 3 saturdays in a row. You just can't beat a spicy rich and filling Indian brunch on a lazy saturday where you can take your time to eat it...well, almost. I had nearly finished when a whole troupe of customers started pouring in and standing around and pressuring me to finish so I couldn't finish my meal. Especially coz there were a couple standing right behind and beside me, the wife who was heavily pregnant so I felt really uncomfortable sitting there....so I just left whatever was on my plate.

Anyway....above, Gav had the chicken tikka masala which he says is the UK's national dish. It was really rich and tasty, with a smokey earthy lavour not unlikely tandoori chicken.

I had the channa bhatura [above] which is chickpea curry with deep fried bread, it comes with the usual yoghurt sauce and some pieces of raw onion. It was my first time having this and I got to know abt it from sanjay's youtube video [check out his site] It was really yummy fresh out of the oil coz it was hot and crisp and the creamy chickpeas were good too...and it was very filling. perhaps because of the oil...or that it's completely carb! anyway as I said, I couldn't finish it because at around 2pm a hoard of people started coming in and crowding around our table making me feel uncomfortable! I wouldn't order it again unless I had someone to share it with...it's too much for one person! Also I'd recommend arriving before 12 and leaving before 2pm, that way you can lazily take your time.

leche flan

I had the good fortune to have casually mentioned to my Philly friend that i loved leche flan which is a Phillipine version of creme caramel, but much richer and thicker, made with condensed milk! and it so happened that his wife had made some that day and had one extra! I happily accepted. It was absolutely the most decadent dessert I've ever had. Here it is flipped out of its pan with its caramel all around it. I didn't flip it perfectly but it still tasted absolutely perfect.
and here it is before I flipped it out! It's made with heaps of egg yolks so it has a golden yellow colour. each spoonful was so creamy and sweet and fragrant with vanilla.

I found a recipe on the internet here if anyone's interested. You'd probably need to find another recipe for meringues too for all the egg whites ! Or just do as I do and fry them with some onion, chilli, anchovies and whatever chopped up veggies you have leftover as an omelette.

To counteract all that cholesterol, have some oatmeal and fish oil tablets afterwards.

Anshumann Da Dhaba again

Last week's meal was so good, we decided to come here again today. It was a cold and wet afternoon so it was nice having something hot and spicy.Here's the thali set again ($7.90) with the rice, naan, yoghurt, onion pickle and curry of choice. Above, is the lamb saag which was really nice, with tender lamb pieces in its thick, rich creamy spinach sauce. The sauce was really so good on its own, the tasty lamb pieces were just an accessory to it!
The naan breads were hot off the oven and crisp on the outside. They were perfect with all the sauces that were offered, the yoghurty ones, the minty one, the red one [i don't know all their names] and the lamb sauce. In fact, we had to order another naan later on coz it was so good.
Above is the amritsari fish ($10.90), which are deboned fish pieces deep fried with a chickpea flour coating. Anything deep fried is yummy, but having it this style was really a treat, the yoghurt and spices just made it so flavourful, and with a crispy coating too. I think it's really worth it to try this here coz making it at home would be too complicated for most, well, for me anyway.