Cookbook Challenge, Week 3, Pork Sausages from A Little Taste Of Thailand

Ok, I'm still a few weeks behind in posting my dishes... but I'll get there, I promise!
I'm a big fan of the 'Little Taste' series. Lots of (to the best of my knowledge) authentic looking dishes and the recipes are always relatively easy, too. As much as I love this book, it's one I never seem to pick up because I usually go for my fancier Thai books like Longrain by Martin Boetz or Lotus by Teague Ezard. At a recent BBQ, we had a Thai theme, so I thought it was a good time to incorporate the cookbook challenge and also make something out of this little used book.

For week 3, the theme is Hor d'oeuvres. I thought these little sausages would make perfect 'little food' before we dig into the bigger salads and main courses. These are really simple to make, take little time and because of their size - they're fast to cook. No need for messy sausage casings here, you just shape them the same way you would a hamburger patty, only in a sausage shape.
They're slightly sweet and very moorish. Everyone was a big fan of these!

It's probably best to leave them in the fridge for a while once they are shaped, to help them hold their shape once their on the BBQ. If you're a fan of char-grilling, I'd recommend it for these sausages, as it adds to the flavour and I think the authenticity of them. I can imagine street vendors in Thailand selling these little beauties. However, they'd probably add a whole heap
more Chilli than I did!

Here's how you make them:

Ingredients:
3 Coriander (Cilantro) Roots
1 Lemon Grass Stalk
4 Garlic Cloves
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 Small red chilli, finely chopped
2 teaspoons of fish sauce
2 teaspoons of sugar (I'd use brown or palm for a slightly more caramel sweetness)
300g Minced Pork

Using a Pestle and Mortar or food processor (easiest option), pound the coriander, lemon grass, garlic and pepper to a paste.

Add the chilli, fish sauce, sugar and pork to the paste mixture and combine well. Form into sausage shapes.

Heat a BBQ or grill and cook the sausages for 4 or 5 mins on each side until cooked through.

Masterchef Australia, Audition Dish - Chinese Style Octopus Carpaccio with Chilli and Snowpea Tendrils (served with Green Nam Jim)

This is a little dish is my investion. I came up with for the auditions for Australia's Masterchef. The judges loved the dish... however, it seems that the executive producers didn't love me, which is why I'm not on TV as we speak. Oh well, there is always next year.

This dish in influenced by two of my favourite chefs. Teague Ezard, who often cooks with a masterstock and loves his asian flavours. It's also influenced by an Italian octopus dish, which I had at Fifteen, Melbourne, which was handmade by the one and only Jamie Oliver. This dish is basically a fusion of both.

When you purchase your octopus, see if you can get octopus which has been in the tenderiser for a few hours. It's basically rolled around in a dryer like drum with some weights and beaten until it's tenderised.



1 Large Octopus, tentacles only.

Masterstock:
3 litres (6 pints) water
250 ml (9 fl oz) light soy sauce
500 ml (16 fl oz) Shao Xing wine (Chinese cooking wine)
200 g (7 oz) yellow rock sugar
40 g (11⁄2 oz) fresh ginger
5 cloves garlic
3 cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks
10 g (2 teaspoons) dried mandarin peel

Spices for bag
4 whole cloves
4 star anise
1 teaspoon sichuan pepper
1 teaspoon licorice root
1 teaspoon dried chilli
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds

Garnish
Finely chopped chillies
Snow pea tendrils
Finely sliced kaffir lime leaves

Place all of the spices into a piece of muslin cloth and tie into a bag. Put the spice bag along with all of the other ingredients in a large stockpot and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 10 –15 minutes to allow the spices to infuse.

Once your masterstock is ready, bring it to a simmer and place your whole octopus in the pot. Cook the octopus for 3 hours on a gentle simmer. Cooking for this time will help make the octopus as tender as possible and also help the octopus to release it's gelatine like properties. This is important later.
Allow the octopus to cool in the stock, until it's cool enough to handle. Gently take the octopus out of the stock and lay the tentacles along side each other on top of a long strip of glad wrap.
VERY tightly roll up the tentacles in the glad wrap to make a big long sausage. Once tightly wrapped up, help the octopus sausage stay tight by wrapping some elastic bands around the sausage. This will help the octopus keep it's shape when sliced. Place the sausage in the fridge to allow the octopus to set overnight.
The next day you can remove the octopus from the fridge, also removing the elastic bands and glad wrap. The Octopus should hold it's sausage shape while it's cold, so you need to work very quickly and carefully.
With a extremely sharp knife, thinly slice the octopus and place each slice on a plate. This is where you will see the beautiful pattern that tentacles make.

Serve the Octopus with a Thai Green Nam Jim dipping sauce.

Strawberry Salad with Speck and Halloumi

I saw Jamie Oliver do this recipe on his new show, where he has the insanely big garden, huge house and best of all, a massive woodfired oven!
I love the idea of food with a twist and mixing ingredients together that seem a little unusual. This salad has definately got that vibe. Although it might sound a little strange to have strawberries in a salad, the taste is actually really (for lack of a better word) 'zingy'.
My local deli didn't have any Speck, but I'm sure you could find it in Melbourne if you looked hard enough- so I used some nice thin Prosciutto instead. Make sure you use some good Balsamic vinegar for this recipe, otherwise the final product will be rubbish. My favourite is from Simon and Johnson, which is about $20 a bottle- but lasts for ages and is definately worth it for the taste.

Ingredients

300g strawberries, hulled and cut into one quarter cm slices good-quality balsamic vinegar the juice of half a lemon extra-virgin olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper olive oil a few sprigs of fresh basil, leaves picked 250g halloumi cheese, cut into 8 thin slices a few sprigs of fresh mint, leaves picked a handful of mixed salad leaves, washed and spun dry 8 slices of speck In a bowl, drizzle the sliced strawberries with a good splash of balsamic vinegar, the lemon juice and some extra-virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. This will draw out and flavour the lovely strawberry juices. Preheat a large non-stick frying-pan to medium hot and add a splash of olive oil. Press a basil leaf on to each slice of halloumi. Place the slices, leaf side down, in the frying-pan and fry for a minute. Turn over carefully and fry for another minute until the halloumi is light golden and crisp. Get yourself four plates and place a couple of pieces of the crispy halloumi on each. Put the mint, the rest of the basil leaves and the salad leaves into the bowl with the strawberries and toss together. Pile some of the strawberry mixture in the middle of each plate and drape the speck over the top. Finish with more salad leaves. To serve, drizzle with balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil.

Son In-Law Eggs

This is my really simplified version of Ezard's Son In-Law eggs, which he serves at Gingerboy.
Ezard serves his with a nice little salad on top, drizzled with Chilli Caramel.
My version is basically the same, but uses less ingredients and is much quicker to put together. This a nice quick little starter to an Asian style dinner party.

Ingredients:

4 Eggs
Bunch of Coriander
Sweet Chilli Sauce
Vegetable oil for Deep Frying.

Method:

Soft boil your eggs (for about 3 - 4 minutes)
Run cold water over the eggs, so they're cool enough to handle
Peel of the shell, gently, being careful not to damage the whites of the eggs
Heat your Oil to 180c and gently deep fry your eggs until golden
Drain on absorbent paper
Cut the eggs in half and place on a plate, yolk side up. The Yolks should still be slightly runny.
Drizzle some sweet chilli sauce over the eggs and place a little mound of Coriander on the top.
Eat with your fingers, YUM!

Amalfi Baked Lemons

After watching my Jamie's Italy DVD, and watching him wandering around the sun-drenched shores of the Amalfi Coast in Italy, I wanted a taste of summer for myself. So, I decided to test out a recipe I was thinking about making for a dinner party this weekend. In Italian, the dish is called limoni di amalfi cotti al forno, which basically translates to Baked Amalfi Lemons in English. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to track down any Amalfi Lemons (yeh... good luck!) but these lemons from Piedemonte's , which is about as Italian as they're going to get around here in Fitzroy!
The basic gist to this recipe is you cut a lemon in half and fill it with some yummy buffalo mozzarella and some other bits and pieces and bake it, so that it's all melted and oozy! The mozzarella takes on the flavour of the lemon and you spread it across some toasted Ciabatta. Bloody delicious. And in case you were wondering.... no, you don't eat the lemon skin!!
Here's the recipe, which I found here for your cooking pleasure:

Ingredients:

• 2 large unwaxed lemons
• 1-2 x 150g balls of buffalo mozzarella, sliced into 0.5 cm / 1/4 inch thick pieces
• 4 fresh basil leaves
• 2 anchovy fillets
• 2 ripe cherry tomatoes, halved
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Optional: 1 dried red chilli, crumbled

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6.
2. Remove the ends of the lemons and discard them, then cut the lemons in half crossways, giving you 4 x 2.5cm/1 inch thick discs. See the picture opposite to see what I mean. Now, using a small knife, remove the lemon flesh leaving you with four hollow circles of skin. Basically, what we're going to do is flavour the mozzarella and push it inside the lemon skin so that it absorbs the lovely lemon flavour when it bakes.
3. Now the mozzarella is obviously going to melt and ooze out when baked. In Italy, a lemon leaf is placed underneath each one to keep everything in place, but it's fine to use a square of greaseproof paper to do the same thing. So, lay a greaseproof paper square or a lemon leaf on a chopping board and place one of your lemon skin wheels on top. Cut a piece of mozzarella to fit inside, then lay a basil leaf, half an anchovy fillet and half a cherry tomato on top with a small pinch of salt and pepper. Add a little dried chilli if you like. Put another slice of mozzarella on top. The lemon skin should now be filled up.
4. Do the same to the rest of the wheels, place them on a baking tray, and cook in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes until golden and bubbling. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes, then serve with some hot grilled crostini. Simply scoop the mozzarella out, eat with the toast and mop up any juices. Delicious!
   
   

Carrot Soup

While I'm going on the soup vibe, here is another super easy soup to keep you warm this winter. Personally, I thought with the addition of Orange Juice to the recipe, the soup would taste more like a juice. The orange works beautifully though, it adds a bit of acidity to the slightly sweet carrot. Give it a whirl!

Ingredients:

500g Carrots, peeled and chopped
2 Cloves Garlic
1 Brown Onion
Juice from half an orange
1 Litre Chicken Stock
200g Sour Cream / Creme Freiche
Salt, Pepper to season
Parsley to Garnish

Method:

Sweat your onion and garlic until soft, without colouring
Add the carrot and saute for a few minutes
Add the stock and simmer the carrots for about 10 - 15 mins, until soft
Blitz the soup in a blender or Bamix
Stir in the Orange Juice and sour cream until dissolved.
Season to taste.
Told you it was easy!

Figs with Prosciutto, Basil and Buffalo Mozzarella

Here’s an easy one for you, which is a great summer classic. I put this together in our little cabin, whilst holidaying in Wilson’s Prom for a few days. It only takes a few ingredients to make these fantastic little gems of goodness. The one thing that I have to stress is to make sure your ingredients are the freshest you can get. Remember, the fresher the ingredients, the better the end product!

Ingredients:

6 Ripe Black Figs, cut into quarters.
24 Basil Leaves, washed and dryed
12 slices of Prosciutto, sliced in half, lengthways
1 Ball of fresh Mozzarella (Buffalo is best, if you can get it), torn apart into 24 similar sized pieces
Sea Salt, Black Pepper and Extra Virgin Olive Oil to serve

Method:

Lay a Prosciutto half flat on the bench.
At one end, place a basil leaf, a piece of fig and some mozzarella.
Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper
Roll your piece of prociutto around the cheese, basil and fig.
Place on a plate and drizzle with some olive oil to serve.

The Best Bruschetta

How good is Bruschetta? You get bread, toast it and put stuff on top. Simple as that. Anyone can make Bruschetta, it's just the quality of the ingredients that you put on top that make the difference.
Here is one of my favourites, which is great as a snack or can be eaten as a starter. Adjust the ingredients to make as many or as little as you like.

Ingredients:

Fresh Ciabatta
Ripe Tomatoes, peeled and seeded
Garlic Clove
Buffalo Mozzarella
Finely Chopped Basil
Lemon Zest
Medium Size Chillies

Method:

First place your chillies directly onto the hob of the stove, making sure you prick the skin of the chillies first, so they dont explode.
Turn the chillies until the skins are blackened all over.
Place the chillies in a small bowl and cover with glad wrap and leave for 5 - 10 mins, this will sweat the chillies and the skins will be super easy to remove.
Run the chillies under cold water and the blackened skin should basically just fall off, leaving the soft, sweet roasted flesh underneath.
It's best to split the chillies now and scrape out the seeds.
Slice this chillies thinly- longways and set aside.
Slice the ciabatta and place on a griddle pan, until you get those dark stripes that look and taste so good. (if you dont have a griddle pan, just toast under a grill)
Once toasted on both sides, cut a Garlic Clove in half and wipe it across one side of the Ciabatta.
Now smell the bread - the garlic smell will be so strong - love it!
Now you can start assembling your Bruschetta.
Start with your chopped tomatoes, then break some pieces of mozarella from the ball and place on top of the tomatoes.
Drape the chillis over the top of the cheese and sprinkle over some of the fresh basil.
Grate some lemon zest over the top of it all, drizzle some Olive Oil and season with Sea Salt and Black pepper. Easy huh?