Pasta Curls with Chilli Salsiccia Fresca

Ingredients

• 500g pasta curls
• 600g Salssicia Fresca
• 100mL of pure olive oil, I acutally used a blend of sunflower and extra virgin olive oil with about 1 tablespoon of extra virgin and 4-5 of sunflower.
• 2 medium onions
• 2 teaspoons of dried chilli flakes
• 6 small green jalapeno chillies
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 large capsicum, roasted
• 2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
• 2 teaspoons of ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon of ground cloves
• 4 tablespoons of tomatoe paste
• 2 cups of sweet red wine, Lambrusco from a cask will do just nicely
• 1 425g can of diced tomatoes
• 1 800ml bottle of pulped tomatoes
• 6 large button mushrooms

Steps

1. Dice the roast capsicum and onions, the onions should be diced fairly large whilst the capsicum should be a finer dice.
2. Chop the garlic into pieces that are coarser than minced.
3. Slice the mushrooms, if the slices are large cut the slices in half.
4. Slice the jalapenos thinly.
5. Slice the salsiccia in half and remove the casing.
6. Dice the salsiccia into medium chunks, as big as the onions at most.
7. Heat the oil on high heat and fry the onions for 2 minutes.
8. Add the chilli flakes and continue frying for 2-3 minutes until the onions become translucent and acquire a slight golden tinge.
9. Add the jalapeno chillies and fry for another minute.
10. Add the garlic and fry for another 2 minutes.
11. Add the smoked paprika, cumin and cloves and fry for another 2 minutes.
12. Stir the tomato paste in and fry for another 2 minutes.
13. Mix in the can of tomatoes including the juice and stir for another minute.
14. Blend in the bottle of pulped tomatoes and reduce to a medium simmer for 15 minutes.
15. Add the mushrooms to the sauce and simmer for at least another 5 minutes until the mushrooms are tender.
16. Serve with the cooked pasta, blending the more liquid parts of the sauce with the pasta and spooning the chunkier parts on top.
17. If desired top with pepper and a grana cheese, I used pecorino pepato which as the name suggests has flecks of pepper thereby using just the one condiment.

Chile Mojo

I first heard about Chile Mojo from the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers Market which had a Chilli Fest day. The owner of Chile Mojo, Joel Adams, was demonstrating how to make Chile Rellenos in the Market Kitchen. A Poblano chili, the people's chilli as Joel explained, is stuffed with cheese, battered and fried to make a rather delicious snack.

Chile Mojo the store is, or should I say was the store as they're moving to 381 Magill Road, a little bit of Mexico in Adelaide packed with all kinds of Mexican and Tex-Mex products you can't find anywhere else in town. There's a Wall of Flame stocked with a wide variety of hot sauces all with a heat rating out of ten. There's all kind of dried and tinned chillis, various Mexican sauces and spice mixes, bloody mary mixes and even tins of tomatillos which I just absolutely love.

They have a mechanised tortilla press to make their own corn tortillas using freshly made masa and these can be bought frozen and quickly heated up in a frypan. The on-site kitchen produces some delicious frozen meals as well as fresh side dishes. These are superb quality, way better than any from a local Mexican eatery, and very reasonably priced.

A few weeks ago I first tried their taco beef which had just been made. It was a lot better than any taco beef I've made using supermarket ingredients with just the right combination of flavours. This weekend I tried the frozen taco beef along with the frozen bean mix to go with the Chile Mojo tortillas and was impressed again.

The taco beef and beans both lost nothing from being frozen with the beans adding a nice complementary texture and subtle flavour. The tortillas were a cut above the supermarket corn tortillas in terms of both texture and taste. Buying the beef and beans ready to go made everything a lot easier and allowed me to concentrate on making my own take on pico de gallo sallsa: freshly diced tomatoes, canned diced tomatoes, diced red onions, minced chilli, coriander and lime juice.

I also bought a pack of frozen Chili Colorad beef burritos and these were amazing. The beef was deliciously tender with a rich, spicy blend of flavours. The way I put them in the oven, and I suspect the way they were made, these have to be eaten with a knife and fork just like in the restaurants. However these are better than anything that can be had in a local Mexican restaurant and I wouldn't mind paying more than the modest price that Joel, who is originally from Colorado, is asking which is a fraction of what you pay at a restaurant.

Having become hooked on Mexican food whilst travelling to America it is a great delight to find a place such as Chile Mojo. The packaging on the ready-to-go meals goes "THE BEST MEXICAN FOOD IS AT YOUR PLACE" and I would have to agree that it certainly is in Adelaide with Chile Mojo's offerings. For all your Mexican and chilli cravings Chile Mojo is the place, so everyone better go there and support it so I can keep having my Mexican fix!

Patee Thai

Brunswick Street in the suburb of Fitzroy is another of Melbourne's main streets with a diverse range of eateries and bars along with the odd bookshop. I was hoping to have dinner at St. Jude's Cellars which is a wine shop, bar and restaurant all in one. The place apparently does some great grazing dishes made for sharing but was closed on this New Year's Day.

Not to worry though there were plenty of other places to choose from. A little Afghan was a surprise find but Patee Thai caught my eye enough to warrant walking back to it. It has a traditional dining area where diners can sit on the floor against Thai triangular cushions. That was more than enough to get me in the door!

Inside the restaurant was doing quite a brisk trade for a New Year's Day with most tables occupied and quite a few young families. The lighting was noticeably dim and whilst not quite dining in the dark it was the dimmest place I've dined out in a while. This made me appreciate the sleek interior more with its spread of Thai ornaments as opposed to the rather generic interiors offset by a token Thai artifact in some places.

After some a bit of overindulgence the night before light and refreshing was the order of the day. Luckily Patee Thai was more than able to accommodate with dishes a cut above the standard popular "Thai-style" restaurants that are beginning to spread. Service was warm and friendly and dishes arrived promptly.

The prawn crackers in the mix entree platter were quite a pleasant surprise, the first time I've had a prawn cracker that did not resemble styrofoam. Rather these crackers were rather thick and solid, but still delightfully light without the greasy aftertaste. The fishcakes were delicious, I can taste them just thinking about them. They were perfectly seasoned and just right in terms of texture without the excessive greasiness of other fishcakes I've had.

The combination seafood soup with lemongrass, galangal, basil, chilli and lemon juice was just the right mix of flavours and heat to soothe the insides after overindulging the day before. With its tang and hint of sweetness it was enough to awaken the tastebuds from their coma. The Thai beef salad also helped ease a sore body as well with its refreshing tanginess. There was a perfect balance of flavours in the chilli bean dressing without the excessive sweetness that can rear its ugly head with this dish.

Overall Patee Thai was a great place to dine with a lovely ambience from dining whilst seated on the floor. The dishes were authentic and well balanced with just the right combination of flavours to excite the palate. For a great dining experience and quality the price was very reasonable. Definitely one of the best places for Thai cuisine in my experience.

Come Fry with Me, Come Fry, Come Fry, Come Fry

Yeah, yeah I know I've been slack. Perhaps I'll revamp this blog, perhaps I won't, I just don't know.
Continuing the theme of my personal notebook, I've been trying out all those lean cuisines/healthy choice/airline frozen meals.

They're actually not too bad when you compare to them to the slop you get at the cafeterias at the places I've worked. They're slightly cheaper, if you buy what's on special you can get them for under $5 which is actually cheaper than most cafeteria meals. Surprisingly they actually taste better than the stuff that passes for food at cafeterias.

Oh and apparently they're better for you and judging by the nutrition box they are. They're also actually quite filling which is a surprise given that most of them contain only a quarter of your daily energy intake at the most. After some soup, yoghurt, fruit and salad this manchild feels quite full by the end of a day.

Here's a summary of my frozen meal findings so far with the meal name and ratings for taste, texture and how filling they are (5 stars max for each from bad, poor, okay, good to excellent):

• Nestle Lean Cuisine Lean Beef Lasagne [4 | 1 | 3]: Possibly could have overcooked this one, the bottom layers were rather leathery but still quite nice on the top layers.
• Heinz Steam Fresh Beef Stroganoff with Curly Pasta [4 | 4 | 3]: Good flavour, beef was suprisingly tender.
• Nestle Lean Cuisine Creamy Mushroom Tortellini [4 | 3 | 3]: Quite tasty although creamy pasta isn't my favourite, perhaps that's because it's usually rather greasy unlike this one. The green bits lost a bit of texture in the freezing and heating.
• Heinz Weight Watchers Pasta Italiano [3 | 3 | 3]: The pasta and sauce were quite nice texture and taste wise. They were let down by the quasi-salami, horribly textured and more frankfurter than salami.
• Nestle Lean Cuisine Sundried Tomato Tortellini [3 | 2 | 3]: The pasta and sauce tasted alright enough. Texture was quite dry and mushy at the same time, perhaps not microwaved right.

Plenty of water, tea and diet soft drinks also help keep a fat bastard quite full. Here's a few of my favourite ones so far:

• Pepsi Max: I hardly ever drink Pepsi, yet this is a favourite, definitely beats Coke Zero.
• Sprite Zero: Not too much of a weird taste to it, still very lemonadey.
• Fanta Zero: Actually I'd say this is better than normal Fanta, as it's not as cloyingly sweet.
• Schweppes Diet Dry Ginger Ale: All that gingeriness hides the artificialness quite well.
• Solo Sub: Again the lemon tang hides that saccharine sweetness quite well, then again some days I'm ambivalent.

European Cafe

After a few drinks at the Colonist pizza was on the agenda. We decided to give the European Cafe a go, as some people have given it glowing reviews although a few years back I wasn't too impressed. It was rather crowded for a Sunday and we were told ours was the only table available, although funnily enough a few minutes later this couple were told theirs was the only table available.

The pizza menu did not impress me too much with its range or offerings considering people rave on about this place's pizza. As pizza was our objective we went for the European pizza which was a classic salami, ham, capsicum, mushroom and olive. To accompany it we got some garlic bread and green salad with some chinotto (San Pellegrino which is a nice rarity now).

The pizza arrived in under ten minutes which was a surprise, given Fellini took 90 minutes for an uncooked pizza. I suspect though that it and the garlic bread had been hanging around for a while. The pizza was nice but not enough to rise above the mediocrity of most cafe pizzas, although in its defence the toppings were balanced with prudente use of cheese.

It was a nice change to get a pizza that wasn't a grilled cheese sandwich like most cafe pizzas, although there still wasn't enough sauce for my liking. The garlic bread was pretty mediocre as well, a bit cold and stale and the green salad didn't distinguish itself from anyone else's green salad.

Overall I'm still not impressed with the European Cafe, sure it's better than a fair few other cafes but it still didn't distinguish itself well enough. The slippery waiter didn't help with impressions either and the food could have been served warmer. I would still prefer to spend a few dollars more and get a lot better pizza and service from a place like Amalfi.

The Colonist

A few weeks ago I spotted the Colonist pub on the Parade. Had a quick peek and was impressed that they had James Squire Golden Ale on tap. So this week we decided to go in for a Sunday arvo drink to chew the fat.

It's a cosy little pub with a rustic charm and some comfy seating. The crowd was a mix of people from the mid twenties to well into middle age. It had a decent gathering of people yet there was plenty of room and not much noise, a perfect place to relax on a Sunday arvo.

As mentioned the big draw card for me was the Golden Ale on tap. It's the perfect summer drink, so easy to drink with plenty of flavour and a lovely tinge. They also had a few other lesser-known beers on tap including the Steam Exchange's Steam Ale and Pipsqueak Cider.

The Steam Ale had all the makings of a great ale yet probably needed some food to go with it to counteract the slightly more bitter than usual bite. The Pipsqueak Cider wasn't too bad as far as ciders go with a well balanced tang and crisp finish. However it could have done with perhaps a tad more sweetness I reckon cos when people think ciders they usually think of something sweet.

I was pleasantly surprised to find they had whitebait on the menu, a rather big bowl for $8, nothing like eating a whole fish. Makes a nice break from the usual greasy chips and wedges, well whitebait's greasy but it's seemingly good grease. Apart from that I was a bit with the rest of the menu as most items were closer to $20 than $15.

Overall the Colonist was a pleasant discovery with it's old school cool. There was a good range of beers on tap and in the fridge, well any pub with Golden Ale on tap is tops in my book. The crowd was a good mix with some pretty young things.

The German Club

The weather was on the cool side of mild this Friday so I felt like something hearty for dinner. As it was the last week of October, we decided to catch the last Oktoberfest night at the German Club in town. For the princely sum of ten dollars each we got entry in with a plastic stein, just like at Schutzenfest. Just as pricey considering I can remember when we got glass steins for less at Schutzenfest.

There was the usual whimsical traditional German music, stein holding competitions and Bavarian dancing with people in traditional German clothes. However the reason most people go to German festivals is not for the tradition despite its charm but for the beer. Beer there was a plenty with pilsner, weissbier and witbier on tap.

The Erdinger witbier was lovely with a nice subtle tang and very easy to drink. The weissbier was more heavier on the gut but still a refreshing drink. Being Oktoberfest they also had Oktoberfest witbier, which had a more mellow but still noticeable tang.

Another reason to go to a German festival is the food, especially the wurst and sauerkraut. They had wurst and sauerkraut rolls for 6. The rolls were a bit too crusty for my liking but the spicy bratwurst with the sauerkraut and mustard was just the thing to go with the witbier.

The German Club also has a kitchen where they offered kasseler and bockwurst on a plate with sauerkraut and potato salad. The bockwurst was quite bland and the potato salad was rather underwhelming, definitely not worth the $16 for the plate especially when you can get a nice bratwurst roll.

The kasseler was a pleasant surprise from what I tasted. I'm not usually a fan of straight pork meat since I can taste the porkiness. The kasseler though is a pork chop, with not too much grease compared to the usual chop, with a texture close to a ham steak but with a pleasant bacon tang to it. It's a pork chop for those who don't like pork. Overall the German Club had a great range of beers and had plenty of German charm.

Skate Fillets with Capers

For a while now I've spotted skate, a.k.a. stingray, fillets at the fish shops with their interesting texture and rather low prices. Apparently they taste like scallops, have no problems with mercury levels unlike other cartilaginous fish and are great value. It has been suggested that the fillets should be left to sit in the fridge for a day or two after purchase to make the flesh more tender. Here's an Australiana fact: stingray fillets were the first recorded European meal eaten in Australia.

With all that in mind I finally took the plunge, bought some skate fillets and pan fried them in butter. The strands of the fillet tear off easily and have a meltingly delicate texture and not at all tough as can be the case with flake. Whilst my taste buds didn't yell out scallops, the flavour was deliciously delicate with a sweet hint of scallop enhanced by cooking in butter. Overall a lovely meat and ridiculously great value, a great culinary secret but don't tell too many people!

Ingredients:
Skate fillets
Milk
Plain flour
Butter
Capers, whole

Steps:
1. Chop the skate fillets into good serving portions and rinse them with salt and water three times. This helps with the tenderness of the fillets and dissipates any ammonia smell from them.
2. Rinse the capers, repeating several times if necessary, to reduce the harsh saltiness and acidity.
3. Dip the fillets in milk such that the entire surface is covered.
4. Coat the wet fillets in flour that has been seasoned with salt and pepper.
5. Melt some butter in a pan over a medium high heat so that it bubbles, making sure the heat is not too high that the butter burns.
6. Fry the dusted fillets on one side for 2-4 minutes depending upon the area and thickness of the fillets.
6. Turn the fillets, add the capers to the pan and cook for a further 2-4 minutes. Stir the capers to ensure they don't overcook and stick to the pan. Note that capers add a nice tang to the fillets but aren't really necessary as the cooked fillets have a lovely delicate buttery flavour.

Pasta in a hurry

Despite pasta sauces being easy, quick to make and great value for money sometimes you just need a quick break from cooking. There are a lot of pre-made pasta sauces out there that are rather bland and definitely not worth the money, most of the big brands are guilty on both counts.

Lucia's, a local operation with quite a reputation, hasn't tickled my fancy at all despite all the hype. I found the pasta sauce to be quite bland and the service to be rather indifferent although I should try their much praised eatery sometime. In amongst a mass of bland pasta sauces I was pleasantly surprised to find two that actually tasted better than most fresh made sauces, although the explosion of very ordinary cafes doesn't set the bar that high. Both were arrabbiata sauces, a rustic tomato sauces with spiciness from chillies.

Whilst arrabbiata isn't that common here in Australia I did also try the chilli and capsicum sauce from Bertolli recently as well. The Bertolli Five Brothers sauce was actually quite a nice consistency and tasted as fresh as any pre-made sauce can be. However it just didn't have that moreness and depth of flavour that the other two had.

Barilla is one of the leading pasta makers in Italy and command a premium over their competitors. Their arrabbiata sauce demonstrates why this is so, with perfect consistency and depth of flavour that is right up there with the best of freshly made sauces. Sacla add whole cherry tomatoes to their arrabbiata sauce for that extra burst of freshness and plumpness. Whilst the sauce itself is not quite up there with Barilla's the addition of whole cherry tomatoes make up for that.

From a greedy guts like me these sauces with al dente pasta make for quite a meal on their own. Team them up with some flakes of tuna perhaps and some salad made up in the time it would have taken to make the sauce and you have a nice wholesome meal. The price premium for these sauces is more than made up with by the extra level of flavour these sauces give you. After all food that you don't enjoy is bad value regardless of price.

Seoul Korean Restaurant

It was a cold and wet night, not your typical late spring weather but good for the farmers as the cliché goes. Korean food is great comfort food for this gloomy sort of weather. It soothes the soul and delights the taste buds with food that is satisfying without making you feel like Mr. Creosote. So with all that I was looking forward to dining at Seoul Korean Restaurant tucked away in a city side street.

For entrées we shared dumplings and seafood pancake. The dumplings were half-moon parcels of minced meat with garlic chives to add some bite. Korean pancakes have quite a lot of filling for not much of the batter, which has a tempura consistency. When perfectly cooked so as to be gently crispy as was the case they make for quite the yummy morsel.

The main courses were variation on a theme as we had bulgogi, spicy beef, japchae and spicy squid. Bulgogi is a dish of thin slices of beef marinated in a soy based sauce with a moresome sweetness stir fried with some vegetables. The spicy beef was similar to the bulgogi but with the addition of a chilli paste made with fermented soy beans, hits all the right buttons on your taste buds.

Japchae, which is actually similar to my a word in my family's dialect of Chinese meaning mix up, is pretty much bulgogi with more vegetables and cellophane noodles. These cellophane noodles are made from sweet potato starch and have a nice squishy texture. The spicy squid was similar to the spicy beef flavouring wise, well except for the whole red meat thing duh, but with perhaps contrasting sweetness and saltiness.

As usual for a Korean meal, the mains were accompanied with some sides including the obligatory kim chi. The kim chi was delicious as always, with just the right tang. I wasn't too excited about the chilli silken soy bean curd or the strips of fish cake. They just didn't have enough intensity of flavour when compared with the kim chi.

Continuing my appetite of kim chi, I thought a bowl of kim chi jigae would be the perfect foil to unseasonably wet and cool October night. The spice and tang of the kim chi sure did open up the airways and the bean curd in soup warmed the cockles of my heart, even below the cockles, I just don't know.

Despite what I said earlier about Korean food not making you feel like Mr. Creosote I almost did, although my arteries still felt fairly clear. However we soldiered on with green tea ice cream for dessert and were rewarded with a lovely, finely gritty textured dessert. It had a level of sweetness that emphasised the flavour of the green tea and made you realise you don't need copious amounts of sugar in a dessert.

In the midst of all this I nursed first a Hite beer and then an OB beer, my preference was for the Hite. The Hite a smoother and more refreshing feel than the OB but I think Cass is still the best of the three Korean beers I've tried.

I miss the way they used to serve Cass beer at Mapo in a frosted glass tankard. It was a much more refreshing experience than Cass served normally. Culinary nostalgia aside I've been pleased with the hospitality and authenticity at Seoul. The staff are warmly sincere and do fill you in on the dishes and the dishes have more rustic charm and are more satisfying than the modern Korean dishes that Mapo now serves. Overall a great place to go for down to earth food and hospitality.

Food Links

Korean food:
Korean Kitchen (Only recipes I've tried from the net so far, just as good as in restaurants)
My Korean Kitchen (Interesting articles, not too sure about fusion food though)
ZenKimChi Korean Food Journal (More interesting articles from a bloke teaching English in South Korea)

Khmer Food:
Khmer Krom (Cambodian food from a Khmer person from south Vietnam that used to be part of Cambodia)

Cooking for Engineers

Been meaning to mention this site, Cooking for Engineers for a while now. It's got some good classic recipes as well as some more experimental stuff this guy comes up or discovers. What turns up the geek factor is how he has these charts where he groups ingredients with different activities, well it's gotta be seen to be admired for it's engineering coolness .