Vietnamese Rice Paper rolls

Over the Christmas/New Year break I went to Vietnam to visit my brother who is living in Hanoi and teaching English. I had a terrific time. I was pretty short on time so only had time in Sapa, in the mountains. Sapa is known as a picturesque trekking town. It is quite cold there (hovered between 0 degrees and 5 degrees) and there was a heavy mist most of the time I was there, which was disappointing because we only had occasional glimpses of the pretty views.

I adore Vietnam. Most of all, I adore the food. The flavours are so fresh and fragrant. There are some great Vietnamese restaurants in Brisbane. I love AJs for a quick and cheap lunch time noodle soup (70 Charlotte Street, Brisbane city). I also love the Vietnamese in Wickham Street for a delicious vegetarian rice paper roll (170 Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley).

I like to make Vietnamese rice paper rolls for dinner - they are pretty easy to throw together after work, healthy (to help me shift my post holiday weight!), cheap and very tasty.

This isn't really a recipe, but more a meal idea.

Rice Paper Rolls with roasted soy chicken

To make the roasted soy chicken (from Bill Granger's Bills Open Kitchen)

150gm fresh ginger, finely sliced

2 tbs caster sugar

125 ml oyster sauce

125 ml Shaoxing rice wine

1 tsp sesame oil

4 chicken breasts

Combine the ginger, sugar, oyster sauce, Shaoxing rice wine and sesame oil in a bowl and stir to combine. Add the chicken, cover with plastic wrap and marinate for at least three hours.

(At this stage, I often freeze a chicken breast or two in a ziplock bag with some of the marinade until I need it. If you are cooking the chicken for the rice paper rolls you will only need 1 chicken breast per two people.)

Preheat the oven to 220degrees Celsius. Sear the chicken with a little oil in a frying pan. Remove the chicken when golden and place on the baking tray. Brush lightly with the marinade and cook for 10 - 12 minutes.

Remove from the oven and cool. When cool, shred the chicken.

To serve the rice paper rolls

Vermicelli noodles, cooked according to the packet (perhaps half a packet per 2 or 3 people)

Carrot, julienned (perhaps 1 carrot per 2 or 3 people)

Cucumber, julienned (perhaps 1 cucumber per 2 or 3 people)

Shredded Vietnamese mint and coriander (half a bunch of each should be enough for 3 people)

Rice paper wrappers (I think each person will eat about 4 wrappers)

Dipping sauce (recipe below)

To serve, place the chicken, noodles, carrot, cucumber and mint and coriander in bowls on the table. Place the rice paper wrappers and a bowl of boiling/hot water on the table.

To serve, soften the rice paper wrappers in the hot water. Place the wet wrapper on the plate and top with a little vermicelli, chicken, cucumber, carrot, mint and coriander, drizzle with dipping sauce. Roll the wrapper up, tucking in the sides.

Enjoy! Messy but yummy.

Dipping sauce

60ml fish sauce

60ml lime juice

2 tbs rice vinegar

1 tbs palm or caster sugar

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 large red chilli, seeded and finely chopped

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until the sugar is dissolved

Strawberry Cloud Cake

This cake has turned into my new 'go to' easy dessert. It's very simple to whip up and super yummy. It tastes like a light ice cream. Gorgeous!

I think this recipe is from a TV show called the Free Range Cook.

As far as desserts go, I don't think it's that bad for you. The cake is basically a frozen strawberry meringue made from sugar, egg whites and a punnet of strawberries. I reckon a 23cm springform tin easily yields 12 generous slices and I think each slice has about 215 calories. Not too bad.

I love this cake. I love it so much that when I first discovered the recipe I made a whole cake just for my greedy self and then ate it over a couple of weeks (the cake stores quite well in an air tight container in the freezer).

Strawberry Cloud Cake

For the base

150 gm plain biscuits, crushed to a fine powder (I have used Marie, Granita and Rich Tea and each have worked fine)

1/2 cup coconut (dessicated or flaked is fine)

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp caster sugar

100 gm butter, melted

For the filling

2 egg whites

1 cup caster sugar

250 gm punnet of strawberries

1tbs lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla essence

Combine all the ingredients for the base in a bowl. The mixture should resemble wet sand. Press the mixture into the bottom of a 23cm lined springform pan. Pop the pan in the fridge while you make the filling.

To make the filling, place all ingredients for the filling in the bowl of a mixmaster. Beat on high for about 5 - 10 minutes. The mixture will become lovely and thick and glossy (like a meringue).

Pour the filling over the biscuit base and cover with gladwrap (I like to pop a rubber band around the gladwrap to make it air tight). Pop the tin in the freezer overnight.

That's it! To serve, remove the tin, place the cake on a plate and prepare to swoon. Yum!

(I usually serve this on its own but I have served this with fresh strawberries adorning the top. I have also made an easy strawberry coulis with fresh strawberries and icing sugar and drizzled that over the top of the cake.)

Food Goals for 2011

Each year I like to come up with some goals for the year. I try to make the goals fun and achievable.

This year, I have also come up with a list of basic foods I want to make which I have never made before. On the list this year:

• Custard;
• Poached eggs; (yep, you read that correctly, I have never poached an egg)
• Hollandaise sauce;
• Cheesecake
• Fresh pasta;
• Ice cream; (I have made this before, but not for a long time)
• Shortbread; (I have made this a couple of times but am yet to emulate my maternal grandmother's FANTASTIC short and dense and crumbly shortbread)
• Panna cotta;
• Creme Brulee;
• Doughnuts; (I made these in 2010 and had a ball, but they definitely need some work)
• Macarons

I am also soon to be the proud owner of a Fowler's Vacola fruit preserver, so preserving fruit is another foodie goal for 2011.

My dodgy looking, but delicious tasting doughnuts from 2010

Christmas Cooking & Happy New Year

Happy New Year little blog!

Forgive me for my long absence.

I had an excellent Christmas. I scored a Cuisinart ice cream maker and a fantastic cook book called the Sono Bakery Cookbook.

Eats wise, we were very spoilt. My mother has a tendency to over cater. This year (meaning Christmas 2010) we had duck, turkey, ham and prawns plus salads, roast vegies and desserts. It was a feast!

I had planned on doing some Christmas baking posts, but alas, was short of time. For now, pictures and a few words will have to suffice.

Cheers to a great year!

Christmas Cake

Christmas Cake with almond icing

Every year my family receive a Kirkston Family Christmas Cake from one of my paternal aunts. It is a family recipe. Before my paternal grandmother passed away, she dutifully made each of her 5 children a Kirkston Family Christmas Cake and Kirkston Family Christmas Pudding. The duty has now fallen to my aunt who does a fantastic job. I have been flagged as the next maker of the Kirkston Family Christmas Cake. In preparation for the auspicious role, I made my first Christmas cakes this year. I used a recipe from Rachel Allen (tweaking it only slightly).

I made the cakes in November and left them to develop until I iced them in an almond paste icing the week before Christmas. I made the cake in a large square tin, and then cut the cake into 4 mini cakes to use as gifts.

Inside the Christmas Cake

Mince Tarts

Pear and Ginger fruit mince for mince tarts.

I made this mince in early November and when I opened the jar on the weekend before Christmas, the flavours had developed nicely. I still have a large jar of this leftover and half an opened jar in the fridge (which I like to dip a teaspoon into occasionally). I think I might make some fruit mince scrolls.

Almond Christmas stars to decorate fruit mince tarts

Other Goodies

Vanilla and lavender butter cake for morning teas with friends

(a good emergency freezer cake)

Christmas Spice biscuits - buttery, thin deliciousness

Salted caramels - I love the contrast between the salty and sweet flavours

Packages of biscuits for colleagues and friends

Croissants for a Christmas breakfast get together (yummy, but need more practice!)

Ham in Coca-Cola

I rarely drink Coca-Cola. Every time I drink it I can practically hear my dentist telling me that nothing rots teeth like Coke. I'm not sure if that's true, but it certainly worked as a scare tactic on me.

I usually glaze baked ham in beer and pineapple. Sounds totally weird and disgusting but it works and it tastes good. However recently, when flicking through Nigella Lawson's How to Eat, I noticed the recipe Ham in Coca-Cola. Trashtastic!

I recently had some friends over for an early Christmas get together and I decided to try Ham in Coca-Cola. It was dead easy and yummy. Of course it's yummy - the Coke infuses the ham with syrupy, sugary goodness!

Ham in Coca-Cola (inspired by Nigella Lawson)

2 Litres Coca-Cola

Onion

Star Anise

2kg ham (I always buy a leg of ham that has the hock in it so I can turn it into pea and ham soup)

Brown sugar

Mustard

Cloves

Quarter the onion and pop it in a large stock pan along with the Coca-Cola, star anise and ham. Put the pot on the stove, bring to the boil and then reduce the heat. Let the pot simmer for about an hour and a half. I found that the 2litres of Coke only partially submerged the ham so every half hour I came and flipped the ham so it got a nice soaking all over.

After the ham has simmered take the ham out of the Coca-Cola and leave the Coca-Cola mixture and ham to cool.

When the ham has cooled enough so you can touch it, place the ham on a wire tray on a baking tray. Put a bit of water in the bottom of the baking tray. (This is to stop the horrible burning smell when the glaze drips onto the bottom of tray.)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Remove the layer of fat on the ham and score the top part of the ham to make a diamond pattern.

In a bowl mix together about 100 gms of brown sugar, a squirt of mustard and a tablespoon or so of the Coca-Cola mixture to make a paste. Slather the paste over the ham.

Stud the diamonds of the ham with cloves.

Bake in the oven until the glaze makes the ham a lovely pinky, goldeny colour, approximately 1 hour.

Leave to rest and cool before serving.

Raspberry & Almond Frangipane Tart

This recipe is from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat. How to Eat is probably my favourite cook book. There are no pictures and I like to read it like a novel. It lives on my bedside table.

This tart is actually a Bakewell Tart. However, I tend to find people much prefer the Frangipane Tart name. In fact, I have had people refuse to eat Bakewell Tart, but when I call it Frangipane Tart, they gobble it. Silly!

A lot of Australians have never heard of Bakewell Tart. I never had and thought the name sounded rather stupid (a tart that bakes well?!). I subsequently found out Bakewell Tart is named after a town in Derbyshire, England. The legend is that an inexperienced servant to one Mrs Greaves of the White Horse Inn, stuffed up a jam tart and put the jam at the bottom of the tart instead of as a topping.

This dessert is very delicious, very popular and very easy. I also like it because I always have the ingredients in my cupboard/freezer. I have made it countless times. Sometimes, when I can't be bothered or don't have much time, I use frozen pastry (Careme is my brand of choice). Still tastes great, but I find the almond pastry lifts it that little bit more. I like it with some double cream.

Bakewell Tart / Raspberry & Almond Frangipane Tart (from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat)

For the almond pastry:

175 g flour

30 gm almond meal

65 gm icing sugar

130 gm butter, diced

one egg yolk

Sift the flour, a pinch of salt, the ground almonds and sugar into a mixing bowl. Add the diced butter and either use the dough hooks of your mixer or use a round bladed knife to cut the mixture (if preparing by hand).

When the butter is reduced to flakes, use your fingertips to rub the pastry. When the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, stir in the egg yolk. You may need to add a drop or two of cold water if the mixture is still crumbly. Form the pastry into a fat disc and pop in glad wrap or foil and pop in the fridge for 20 minutes.

After the dough has rested, roll out the pastry and line a 26cm round greased tart tin. I roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper to stop it sticking to the bench. Pop the lined tin back in the fridge while you make the filling.

(I realise that the pastry sounds rather fiddly but I reckon the whole process takes about 10 - 15 minutes)

For the filling:

125 g butter, softened

125 g caster sugar

3 eggs

3 tablespoons raspberry jam

300g raspberries (I usually use frozen)

125 g almond meal

15 g flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Melt the butter. Beat the melted butter, sugar and eggs together in your mixer. The mixture gets very glossy and thick (a little like meringue, but not as stiff). While the mixer is on, spread the jam on the base of the pastry case and cover with the raspberries.

Add the almond meal to the now voluminous egg mixture (just a quick stir to ensure it is distributed through the egg). Don't beat the almond in - you don't want to lose any of the lovely volume.

Pour the almond and egg mixture on the frozen raspberries. Sprinkle with flaked almonds.

Bake in a 200 degree oven for around 35 - 45 minutes or until the tart is golden and swollen.

I sometimes find the tart browns quite quickly. If I am worried the tart will burn I put a wooden chopping board on the wire shelf above to stop the heat directly hitting the top of the tart.

Serve warm.

Chocolate Eclairs

I'm always ripping out recipes that catch my eye in magazines or newspapers. I have lots of scrappy bits of paper floating around my desk with recipes for all sorts of things - panna cotta, chocolate cake, ravioli, meat ragu sauce. I really have to come up with a proper filing system.

Anyway, this recipe for chocolate eclairs is from the Good Weekend magazine (free with the Sydney Morning Herald or the Age). It's from Cath Claringbold who is one of the founders of Mecca Bah. Despite Mecca Bah being a chain restaurant (shudder). It's a good chain ('good chain' almost sounds like an oxymoron).

Chocolate Eclairs

120 g plain flour

250 ml milk (full fat please)

pinch salt

pinch caster sugar

120 g unsalted butter

4 large eggs

1 quantity pastry cream

good quality dark chocolate (melted)

To make the pastry cream:

300 ml milk (full fat please)

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

3 egg yolks

60 gm caster sugar

20 gm plain flour

20 gm corn flour

In a saucepan eat the milk and vanilla seeds just to the boil.

Place the egg yolks, sugar and flours into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until pale and smooth.

Once the milk has boiled, remove from the heat and incorporate a third into the egg mixture. Mix and then pour back into the saucepan with the remaining milk.

Return the saucepan to a medium heat and, stirring continuously, bring the pastry cream gently to the boil. Stir for 30 to 60 seconds until it has thickened. Remove from the heat. Pour into a clean bowl and cover with cling wrap to prevent a skin forming. Leave to cool.

To make the choux pastry shells:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and sift the flour.

Heat the milk, salt, sugar and butter in a large saucepan. Bring to the boil and remove from eat. Add the flour and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth and starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, forming a ball. This takes about 20 seconds.

Return the saucepan to the stove over a low heat and continue to beat for 1 minute. Place the mixture into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat at high speed for 30 seconds to release heat and steam from the mixture. (This can be done with a wooden spoon if you don't have a mixer)

Reduce the speed slightly and add the eggs, one at a time. The finished dough should be glossy and soft.

Place the dough in a piping bag and pipe 9cm lengths onto a greased, lined tray. Bake in the oven for 20 - 30 minutes or until the pastries are golden and crisp.

Place the pastries on a wire cooling rack. With a sharp knife make a tiny slit in the end to allow the steam to escape. Leave to cool completely. (At this stage the pastries can be frozen if you wish to have them later). My pastries deflated a lot while cooling.

To assemble:

Fill a piping bag with the cooled pastry cream. Make a tiny hole in the end of each pastry. Gently fill with the pastry cream until you see or feel it reach the other end.

Melt some dark chocolate and dip the tops of the eclairs in to ice.

Decorate your eclairs. I used crystallised violets which I bought from Black Pearl Epicure. I chopped them very finely to make into a purpleish, sugary dust.