pork dumplings, also known as "siu mai"

I got inspired to make this, funnily enough, by a westernized recipe from the Herald Sun, it said to use beef mince and pork fat, but I reverted to my Chinese-ness and just used pork mince. It's so easy to do, just put some seasoned mince pork into the wanton skins, and steam for 10 minutes! Preparing the pork is easy - season it, then add some cornflour and an egg to make it bind and set. For a traditional tasting one, I used sesame oil, soy sauce, spring onions, dark soy sauce, and tiny bit of sugar. You could add chopped chilli, coriander, shaoxing wine and ginger too.

The wanton skins stick when wet, so wet the edges that you want to stick. Serve with chilli sauce.

Desserts

This is the array of sweet treats in a Greek cafe, also in Preston.
There were a few Greek things like baklava and that crescent shaped sugar coated cookie.
Above, the ricotta and chocolate cannoli which we both loved. It was creamy, crunchy and had just the right amount of sweetness that Gav likes. [not very much!]
Here, the kataifi which I ordered only because of its Greek name and I wanted to try something new, and Greek. It looked like it was made with lotsa sugary soaked "meehoon"[rice noodles] but of course it wasn't. I didn't like it however, it was wayyy too sweet for me. Perhaps this wasn't an authentic one? Perhaps it was mass produced. I'll never know coz I don't have any Greek friends.

Balkan Burek!

We chanced upon this Macedonian Burek shop on High St in Preston and were really impressed with the burek. Each slice is $5.50, and you can get a whole one for $22, which I think could feed 4-5 people. Frozen ones are $16, and we saw lots of customers buying them by the takeaway boxfuls.

A burek is a pie with buttery flaky pastry encasing a tasty filling such as meat, spinach or ricotta cheese. We ordered the meat burek, below, and it was served hot and fresh from the oven. It smelled really really good! [as all things fattening do] It reminded me of the Malaysian mamak "murtabak" which is a roti filled with meat, but this one had a lighter and crisper pastry, with less filling. We both loved it and I wished we could try all the types of fillings! Perhaps next time.

taiwanese steamboat

when we boil raw foods at the table and eat them with a dipping sauce, it's called a "steamboat". I don't know why. perhaps coz the morsels of food look like boats floating on the soup and it releases a lot of steam as it boils? anyway, it's a great winter warming meal! here we had some fishballs, pork balls, tofu, chinese cabbage, and thinly sliced pork and beef.
the dipping sauce which is made out of a raw egg yolk, chilli and garlic paste and some other brown Taiwanese BBQ sauce.
the whole thing boils at the table on an electric hot plate.
here's the meat! although it looks like a lot of fat, each slice is very thin and this whole platter is shared with 7 people so I don't think it's as unhealthy as it looks.

Pin Tohng Thai in Potts Point

This is the first time we've had Thai food in Australia. It was our final night in Sydney and we were walking around Kings Cross/ Potts Point wondering what to have for dinner. Pizza, Japanese, Indian and Oporto were available but it was so cold, we wanted something hot and spicy. Never having had proper authentic Malaysian food here, I didn't expect this Thai one to be anywhere near the standard I was used to but we were pleasantly surprised. Everything we ordered tasted just as good as if it were in Malaysia. Or Thailand for that matter [they're next to each other] This little half shop had some Bhuddist statues around and the girl at the counter spoke Thai so I reckon it's definitely authentic.
The tomyam soup was sooo good, really flavourful, spicy and tasted like its real ingredients, and had pieces of lemongrass in it. and it was full of chicken and mushrooms as you can see on top. the serving sizes were SO BIG! we weren't expecting it to be so huge. Each person's serving was enough for 2, really.
Below, the pad prick [fresh chilli] stir fried beef, which was excellent. The seasonings were perfect, the vegtables cooked just right, not overcooked or undercooked so they retained some "bite" and the slices of beef were perfectly tender and as i said, there was such a HUGE serving.
Below, the panang curry which had a rich flavourful sauce that was perfect with the steamed rice, and generous amounts of chicken and vegetables in it as well, with fragrant thai basil strewn over the top. We kinda "forced" ourselves to finish it coz we didn't want to waste any but really, it was enough to serve 3-4 people, so i ended up eating too much and feeling really bloated afterwards......
I highly recommend this place and only wish there were such a Thai place here in Clayton!

Pin Thong Thai

• Shop 2
  117B Macleay St
  Potts Point 2011 NSW
• Phone: (02) 8356 9033

going Japanese

I'm quite pleased with myself - i made this Japanese lunch for hubby! Onigiri and inari sushi. Actually, these were so easy to make, a 4 yr old could've done it. The onigiri were bonito flake and soy sauce filled rice balls shaped into a triangle, then stuck with a seaweed strip. The inari was the easiest - you can buy the tofu skins in packets from asian grocers, these were around $3 for a pack of 8 skins. Just stuff them with sushi vinegar-ed rice. The tray was saved from a sushi takeaway meal [something as pretty as that should be reused!]
Then I decided to show off my pretty sakura ceramic plate that I got in Malaysia.
here they are again! Gav said they tasted okay.