Posts from the Food Category
Had our IT Christmas lunch at Beppi’s in East Sydney today. Beppi’s is an institution and was established in 1956 by Beppi and his wife Norma and is still family owned and run today. Convenient location, friendly, knowledgable waiters and great ambience however i’ve got to say I was a little let down by the food – it wasn’t as good as I remember it. I had the beef carpaccio for entree, angel hair pasta with crab, prawn & lobster in a saffron sauce for main followed by strawberry crepes with grand marnier sauce. Both the entree and the main were quite tasteless, however the dessert was OK. Our table of five was also overcharged to the tune of $50 for dishes ordered by a nearby table. Don’t think i’ll be going back in a hurry.
I’m so full I feel like a beached whale…
This delicious pasta dish is simple to make and very moreish! Works well with tagliatelle if you don’t have any pappardelle. Serves 4.
Ingredients
1 live mud crab (approx 1.4kg)
16 green king prawns, shelled & deveined
100ml olive oil
350-400g fresh pappardelle pasta
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 sml red chilli, finely sliced
50ml dry white wine
250g vine-ripened cherry tomatoes, halved
1 bunch continental parsley
50g unsalted butter
1 lemon
Salt & pepper
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METHOD
Put the mud crab in the freezer for approx 20mins while you bring a big pot of salted water to the boil. Take the mud crab straight from the freezer and put into the boiling water and cook for 10min per kg of crab. Drain water and allow the crab to cool before extracting all the crab meat. Set the crab meat aside.
Bring a pot of water to the boil.
In a large frypan over medium heat lightly fry the garlic and chilli in olive oil, being careful not to colour the garlic. Add the prawns and crab meat, turn the heat up to high and cook for 30 seconds.
Add a splash of dry white wine and flambé. Add the cherry tomatoes and a handful of roughly chopped parsley. Toss to combine.
Put the pasta in the pot and cook until al dente, drain & add to the frypan. Add the knob of butter, season well with salt & pepper and toss together to combine.
Serve with a small handful of chopped parsley and a wedge of lemon. Enjoy!
Note: If you are using dry pasta you will have to put it in the pot to cook before you start cooking the chilli and the garlic as it will take a lot longer to cook then the fresh pasta.
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Delicious and wholesome and also reasonably healthy. These are the tastiest muffins ever! Recipe courtesy of my girlfriend. Makes 12.
Ingredients
2/3 cup plain flour
1/3 cup almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
2/3 tsp bicarb of soda
pinch salt
2/3 tsp cinnamon
2 large ripe bananas
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup chopped nuts (pecans/walnuts)
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METHOD
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius (fan-forced).
Beat butter, sugar, egg & vanilla essence in a bowl until smooth and creamy. Continue mixing and add mashed bananas followed by the flour, bicarb of soda, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Stir in nuts.
Put into a greased & floured muffin tray and cook for 14-15 minutes. Serve with a knob of butter & dusted with icing sugar. Mmmmmmm!
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Delicious and simple! You can make this with fresh bread but the stale bread is really what makes the dish. Serves 4.
Dressing
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, crushed
salt & pepper
Salad
1 stale ciabatta loaf, roughly broken up by hand
6 large ripe roma tomatoes, quartered
1 lebanese cucumber, peeled and roughly chopped
5-6 slices red onion, broken up
1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
12 large basil leaves, roughly torn
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METHOD
Whisk the dressing in small bowl and set aside.
Put the bread in a large bowl with 2 cups water for 1min. Drain the water off and squeeze any excess water from the bread with your hands and drain that off also. Add in all the other ingredients except the basil, add the dressing and mix well. Set aside at room temperature for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
When ready to serve, stir in the basil. Enjoy!
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I don’t often have burgers but when I do I’m not concerned about them being low-fat – I want them to be tasty – and these certainly are! Makes 2 good size burgers.
BURGER PATTIES MIXTURE
250g beef mince
1 egg
1 tablespoon parsley, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/4 sml white onion, finely diced
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
salt & pepper
BURGERS
2 hamburger buns
2 tablespoons hummus
2 rashers bacon
2 eggs
1 tomato
Lettuce leaves
Tomato sauce, to serve
Slices of cheddar cheese (optional)
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METHOD
For the patties, mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and form 2 large patties, set aside.
Cook the bacon in a pan until crispy, set aside. Cook the patties in the leftover bacon juices (3-4mins each side) and add the eggs to pan toward the end of the cooking process and cook to your liking.
Put 1 tablespoon hummus on the bottom of the hamburger bun, top with lettuce, tomato, the beef patty, bacon rasher, egg and tomato sauce. Serve with your favourite oven chips. Enjoy!
Optionally after you have turned the beef patties over once in the pan, top them with 3-4 slices of cheddar cheese and let that melt over the top of the patty before placing on the hamburger bun for that extra bit of taste!
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Yep – had it for about a week now which has meant absolutely zero riding and trying to rest. Amazing how men can have broken bones, cuts, scrapes and other injuries without flinching but then when we get the man-flu it knocks us for six and we are literally bedridden – how does that work??
Anyway i’m not normally one to take any kind of medication unless it’s antibiotics (plenty of water and rest seems to cure everything else) but this time i’ve been using betadine anti-viral/bacterial sore throat gargle and I think it has actually reduced the severity of my man-flu this time around.
A while back I posted about my favourite pad thai in Sydney – which is at the noodle bar of the David Jones food court @ Market St in the city. A couple of people after that advised me to try Chat Thai so that’s where I went for lunch today – not the one in Haymarket but the sister store at Galleries Victoria:
Chat Thai’s main differences are they use little chicken pieces vs mince @ DJ’s, chives as a garnish instead of baby bok choy and the flavour is a little milder vs the DJ’s one. Portion sizes are very similar and both come with a wedge of lemon and half a kg of bean sprouts. Chat Thai’s Pad is $7.50 vs DJ’s $15.50 and having tasted both I have to say I still prefer the DJ’s version and I challenge all you Chat Thai lovers to give DJ’s a go and let me know what you think! Ultimately I just think their flavour combination works better. I have not tried any of the other Chat Thai dishes but the thai beef salad looked delicious!
This crepe recipe is very simple and consistently makes beautiful thin & tasty crepes. I used lemon & sugar to top them here but use whatever toppings take your fancy! Serves 4.
CREPE MIXTURE
1 cup flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons (30g) butter, melted
TOPPING
1/2 tablespoon caster sugar
Juice of 1/4 lemon
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METHOD
In a large bowl whisk together the flour and eggs. Continue whisking and add the milk and water, followed by the salt and butter until you have a smooth, lump-free consistency.
Pour about 1/4 cup of mixture over a greased frypan on medium-high heat and quickly rotate the frypan so the mixture thinly covers the whole surface. Turn over after 1-2mins and cook for 30secs on the other side before turning out onto a plate and repeating.
Sprinkle with sugar & lemon juice. Enjoy!
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This dish is delicious but does take some prep time! Serves 2.
INGREDIENTS
1 punnet grape tomatoes
2 gloves garlic, finely chopped
1 sml red chilli, roughly chopped (deseed if you don’t like it hot)
2 tbs olive oil
12 green king prawns, peeled & deveined
PASTA
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp olive oil
100g plain flour
LEMON CHILLI BREADCRUMBS
1 tbs olive oil
1 cup ciabatta, roughly chopped
rind of 1/2 lemon
1 sml red chilli, deseeded
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METHOD
To make the pasta, mix ingredients together in a bowl and then turn out on to a floured surface, kneed and put through a pasta machine to desired thickness and cut in to 2cm wide strips (use a rolling pin if you don’t have a pasta machine).
To make the lemon chilli breadcrumbs heat the olive oil in a small pan, add ciabatta breadcrumbs and fry until golden, add in the lemon rind and chilli and cook for a further minute. Take out and blend lightly until the consistency of breadcrumbs and season well with salt and pepper.
In a small saucepan heat the olive oil then add the garlic and chilli until the garlic is transparent. Add the grape tomatoes and cook lid on for 5-10mins on high until all the tomatoes have burst and you have a nice tomato sauce.
Put the fresh pasta in a pot of boiling water and cook until al dente. In the meantime mix the prawns with 1 tbs olive oil and season well in another bowl and cook in a fry pan for 3-4mins each side.
Drain the pasta and add to the tomato sauce then plate up with the pasta as the base, prawns on top and then garnish with the lemon chilli breadcrumbs and a wedge of lemon. Enjoy!
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This dish is low in fat and delicious! You can also make them with prawns instead of chicken. Makes 15 rolls (serves 3).
INGREDIENTS
150g vermicelli noodles, soaked in boiling water and allowed to cool
1 chicken breast (300g) poached and shredded
1 large carrot, peeled & julienned
1 cup wombok (chinese cabbage) finely chopped
1 tsp dried chilli flakes (optional)
12 snow peas, ends removed and finely chopped
1/2 cup snow-pea sprouts (cut the stalks off – just the leafy bits) roughly chopped
1/4 cup spring onion, finely chopped
Rice paper wrappers
WASABI MAYONNAISE
1/2 cup whole egg mayonnaise
2 tbs wasabi
1 tbs warm water
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METHOD
Mix mayonnaise, wasabi and warm water in a small bowl until well combined, set aside.
Put all the other ingredients in a big bowl and add the wasabi mayo, mix thoroughly. Wrap in rice paper rolls and serve immediately. Enjoy!
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This is a very easy dish to make requiring only two pots! You can add more seafood than that shown below (mussels, lobster etc…) but I really like the simplicity and flavour of the prawns, fish & calamari together. Serves 2.
INGREDIENTS
150g spaghetti (I like garofalo brand)
2 tbs olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 sml white onion, finely diced
1 tsp dried chilli flakes (optional)
1 1/2 tbs tomato paste
400g vine-ripened tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
200g ling fillets (or other white-flesh fish), roughly chopped
2 squid tubes, cleaned and cut into rings
8 green king prawns, peeled & deveined
2 tbs flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
lemon quarters, to serve
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METHOD
Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, add onion, garlic & chilli flakes and cook until onion is translucent (i.e. do not brown!). Add tomato paste and roughly chopped vine-ripened tomatoes and simmer 10mins, stirring occasionally (sauce will start to thicken). Add in half the ling fillets and cook for a further 10mins – the ling fillets will break down and become part of the sauce. Continue stirring occasionally. Season well.
Cook the pasta in boiling water until al dente. Drain and set aside.
Add the rest of the ling fillets and the prawns & calamari and cook lid on for 3-4 mins. Take off the heat, toss the pasta in with the sauce along with 1tbs of flat-leaf parsley and coat well.
Serve immediately with a lemon wedge and the remainder of the flat-leaf parsley. Enjoy!
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