First up I served a Papaya and Chicken Salad from Marie Claire's 'Kitchen' Magazine. I couldn't actually find Papaya in Victoria St, so I used few sweet, ripe mangoes instead. A delicious replacement and so cheap too! This salad has summer written all over it. The spring onions make it crunchy, the roast chicken breasts are soft and the mango slippery. The dressing consists of tamarind, soy sauce, palm sugar, ginger, chilli and cumin. A few crushed peanuts, some fried shallots and chopped mint thrown into the salad and there you go - summer salad!
For the main course, I bought everyone a whole Snapper each. I bought 6 of them in Victoria St, and they totalled $25. Not bad considering a whole Snapper at a reputable restaurant would set you back at least $40. I cut slashes in the side the fish, then I marinated the Snapper in chilli, garlic, ginger, soy and olive oil. I then deep fried each Snapper until they became golden and crunchy. Once ready I dressed the fish with a mixture of Soy, Lime, Coriander, Peanut Oil and Palm Sugar. Served simply with some steamed asian greens and some lemon.
Finally, dessert. The ultimate Summer fruit. Peaches. Soft ripe, sweet Peaches! I could eat these things all day long. For lunch, I poached them in a vanilla sugar syrup. I used vanilla bean paste, which still gives you those little black dots, but ends up working out much cheaper than buying beans. 1 tsp = 1 bean. After about 5 minutes I took them out and left them to cool a bit, so I could remove their skins, leaving that gorgeous yellow/pink flesh exposed. Continue to simmer the sugar syrup until it's thickened and then add juice from 1 lemon. Leave the syrup to cool. Pour over the peaches and serve with some mint and ice cream. Unfortunately the 36c heat melted my ice cream before I could take the photo.
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