A house warming crafternoon

On Sunday, our monthly crafternoon session was held at Kelly and Andrew's gorgeous new digs. As Miss Jasmine T was rather well-behaved beforehand, I managed to crack out these peanuty sesame noodles. With mostly warm weather upon us, these noodles are great when eaten cold and won't suffer much from banging about in your bag on the way to a picnic.
I ended up making quite a large batch but if you want to size it down you could divide the ingredients to what you need - as a guide, the dressing should have the consistency of a thick batter, for optimal noodle coverage.

Peanuty sesame noodles
makes enough for around 8-9 people as a side

What you need
For peanut dressing
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter plus a few extra spoons for good luck
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup warm water
1 thumb of chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 medium garlic clove, chopped
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons of jarred chili (as the potency of jarred chili can vary quite significantly, you might want to taste a bit first and then adjust quantity accordingly)

for the noodles
4 packs of sharwoods dried egg noodles - 1 pack of spaghetti or somen noodles would work well too
a third of a cucumber, sliced thinly in rounds then cut into thin strips
a handful of mint, finely chopped
a couple of tablespoons of toasted sesame seeds
half an iceberg lettuce, chopped as thinly as you can make it
1 lemon, cut into wedges

The do
Cook the noodles as per instructions, then drain and rinse under cold water. You can leave them in the colander while you prepare the dressing.
In a food processor or blender, throw in the dressing ingredients and blitz until thoroughly combined.
Transfer half the dressing into a very big bowl, throw in the drained noodles, then pour the rest of the dressing on top. Use your hands to evenly coat the noodles with the dressing.
Spread the lettuce and mint evenly over the top and then sprinkle with the toasted sesame seeds. If you aren't digging in straight away, leave it to hang out in the fridge for a while, then give it a good toss and serve with lemon wedges.

This is should be a hit with everyone except those unfortunate enough to have a peanut allergy - Andrew even came out of isolation and braved a kitchen full of women and a boisterous toddler to get a second helping, so I guess that says something!

Tunes
Kelly's ipod

Who wants yesterday's dinner?

Tonight Jasmine T has dashed our hopes of making a delicious mushroom, purple sprouting broccoli and lentil pie, and instead I'm leaning over the kitchen sink at 9.30 eating a concoction of leftovers that I've found in the fridge. Bedtimes are becoming a bit of a drama these days as she has just figured out how to stand in her cot, and thinks it's hilarious, until she realises that she is so tired that she has forgotten how to lie down again. Cue screaming. Carters or I come to the rescue and lay her back down. Repeat 100 times.

So back to dinner. They say necessity is the mother of invention and I'm quietly very pleased with my humble leftover combination. I took the potato and pea mixture left over from when I made curry puffs for our little new year's eve gathering, spooned some into a crisp iceberg lettuce leaf and topped it with a dollop of natural yoghurt and a few mint and coriander leaves. An Indian take on the Chinese sang choi bao. I'm going to razz up the curry mixture and post a proper recipe soon.

Simple Salad

Back when I had a TV I remember a show where a chef would pounce on someone in the supermarket then follow them home and cook a meal with only the ingredients he found in their shopping basket, fridge and pantry. Even if you ignore the stalking connotations it wasn't a particularly good show, worse when a friend told me the chef visited her work and allegedly sent the crew shopping to stock the fridge before recording the shot of him arriving to 'discover' the ingredients he was going to cook with. Wuss.

Discovery cooking pretty much sums up my entire culinary philosophy. Planning meals, writing a shopping list, checking a cook book in advance; these are all extremely foreign concepts. Which is why this salad I picked up from Summer in Toronto is such a winner with my fridge, especially at its most bare.

All you need to do is wash, dry and shred some iceberg lettuce then toss it with chopped dill, lemon juice, olive oil, cracked black pepper and sea salt. That's it. Iceberg always tastes better shredded and this dressing makes the little green strings sing. Combined with baked stilton mushrooms, this is a stupidly simple and tasty din dins.

Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi Fa Cai! (part 3)

Sang Choi Bao (Lettuce Cups)

A few handfuls of dried shittake mushrooms
A few handfuls of dried black fungus
1 big can of whole water chestnuts
1 big can of liiiittle baby corn
2 iceberg lettuce
Peking duck sauce
Sesame seeds



Peel away the lettuce leaves, try and keep them intact. Wash and store in container in fridge.
Pour boiling water and a few splashes of soy sauce over mushrooms and fungus and leave overnight.

Chop all the ingredients to the same shape. Heat some oil in a frypan and throw everything in. Splash with soy sauce. Fry until heated through. Empty into a big bowl. Top with sesame oil and sesame seeds.

To serve: Get the lettuce cups out of the fridge, place next to filling and peking duck sauce. Guests can now make their own by spooning a couple of tablespoons of mixture into the lettuce cup, topped with a spoon of sauce.

Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi Fa Cai! (part 2)

The directive for Chew’s Chinese New Year feast was to bring a plate of Asian inspired deliciousness. Fusion! Brilliant! Me being no Iron Chef, I needed that sort of lateral thinking. And if it worked for Miles Davis…

I’ve always wanted to make chicory leaves stuffed with blue cheese the way they do at our Spanish local, Brindisa. I had most of the ingredients on the weekend... as well as rice paper sheets. Not only would this combination make for an interesting clash of textures, it'd be perfect for Chew's party. I was going to call them (con)fusion rolls. But then Confucian Rolls seemed more in keeping with the theme.

Confucian Rolls

What you need

Red and white chicory leaves
Blue cheese
Cream
Walnuts
Chives
Round rice paper sheets (I got them at a grocery in Chinatown)
Bowl of boiled water
A couple of slices of firm tofu
A tester (mine is called Adam)
Squeeze of lemon juice
Shredded lettuce

How it happens

I would recommend doing a few test rolls before cranking them out proper – to make sure your stuffing mix is right and the whole package is tasting a treat. This is where your tester comes in because if you try too many in a row you will be stuffed yourself.



Stuffing the Leaves

Wash the chicory, cut off its end bit, chuck out the skanky outer leaves and separate the rest. You want the leaves to be dry.
Mash up the blue cheese with some cream, dash of lemon juice, chives and pepper. I reckon sour cream could work too. How much cream? I just added little bits at a time until the mixture was smooth. When I first tried it the blue cheese was a little overpowering but I didn’t want to put too much cream in so I mashed the tofu in to thin out the flavour a bit. Up to you.

You don’t need a whole lot of the mixture in each – you want it to be a lovely little flavour burst contrasting with the crunch of the leaves rather than full on blue oozing out. I used one supermarket pack of cheese for nearly thirty rolls.
Lay the walnuts on an oven tray and toast them for a few minutes. Let them cool then crush them (not too fine).
Spoon some of the blue cheese mixture into each chicory leaf and sprinkle over a few walnut bits, then cover the stuffing with some shredded lettuce leaves.



Rolling it up

To prepare the rice paper, you need to drop the sheets into a bowl of boiling water. I do them one at a time. Leave it for a minute then scoop it out with a spoon or fork. Let the water evaporate, then flatten it on a plate. You want the sheet to have lost all its hardness but not be too sloppy. You’ll need to replenish your boiled water regularly – the sheets don’t get soft enough if the water has cooled.

Place the stuffed chicory and shredded lettuce onto the sheet and roll it up, folding the edges in early. The stickiness of the sheet means it will attach to itself and stay rolled in a neat little bundle. Some of the sheets will tear, fail to roll or end up looking like crap. Don’t worry, just start over with a new one. Or feed your tester.

This is a bit of a fiddly and time consuming plate to prepare, but if you haven't got any other party tricks this one's a surefire winner.