plate 8: portugal

I hopped on the destination degustation plane to Portugal this week and I. LOVED. IT. The food had so much muscle. Everything I cooked was laced with olive oil, garlic, onions and fresh herbs (apart from the Portuguese tarts of course) - all of which I think add scrumptious deliciousness to any plate.

On top of being powerful in flavour it was fairly exhausting to prepare, probably because I was cooking for six, not something I do often. My aunty was in town, though, so I wanted to cook for my family. As you may have read on my post last week, food is the best way to show the love. To the Portuguese, I'm sure having six people over for dinner is no great event - in fact, it's probably seen as a small gathering - but to me, in my little flat, it was quite a large-scale affair - we barely fit around my table. That being said, the almost five hours I spent prepping and cooking the feast was well worth the pain.

My lovely friend Sonia is Portuguese, so before embarking on my adventure I asked her advice for what to cook. She thoughtfully post-it-noted a number of recipes in Tessa Kiros's Piri Piri Starfish cookbook and confirmed they were all authentic, so I knew I was safe.

I settled on the national dish, bacalhau, which is salted cod. Usually bacalhau needs days of preparation to remove excess salt from the fish. But I didn't have days, I had six hours. The fishmonger assured me I could leave the bacalhau in the sink covered with cold water for this amount of time then have it under cold running water for half an hour before it was time to cook it. Please don't judge me for being environmentally irresponsible - it's all in the name of a good feed. The dish turned out fantastically in the end. I won't say it wasn't salty, but I like strong, salty flavours so to me it was great. My family agreed - even my dad who doesn't really like fish. (In hindsight I think he was just being the wonderfully supportive parental figure he is.) I baked the cod with potatoes, tinned tomatoes, garlic, onion, olives and olive oil, and my family and I seemed to enjoy it with as much gusto as the Portuguese. Apparently Portuguese folk love bacalhau so much that they have 365 ways to eat it - one for each day of the year. Now that's exhausting.

Sharing the plate with the cod was a side of black-eye beans cooked with capsicums, onions and, you guessed it, lots of olive oil and garlic. A second side of broad beans and chorizo - again cooked with loads of olive oil and garlic - was equally delicious. The plate was colourful and overflowing with flavour.

We were all suitably stuffed after the cod and two sides, but in our family dessert is a must so we all left room in our second stomachs for the piece de resistance - pasteis de nata: you'll know these as Portuguese tarts. If I do say so myself, they were amazing. Super easy to make (I followed a tried-and-trusted Women's Weekly recipe that a friend recommended), the custard had a smooth and creamy texture, and the flavour was sweet, but not sickly so. The best bit was that you didn't need to make your own pastry, but the tarts still featured that fabulous flakiness you get from a bakery-bought version. The only thing I thought they lacked was that famous blackened, caramelised top. Sonia thinks this could be rectified with a little blast under the grill after they've baked, so if you want to try that please let me know how it goes. And don't just let me know how that works - try the bacalhau, too, and let me know what you think. Happy cooking x

plate 7: sri lanka

Something amazing happened this week: I got over my fear of separating eggs. While you may not think this is revolutionary, for me it's kind of a big deal. Now let's not get ahead of ourselves here - I'm not separating like a professional, but getting over the fear was a good little achievement.

I encountered egg separating this week while making plate 7 - Sri Lankan Love Cake. I know I probably didn't do Sri Lankan cuisine justice without a spice-laden curry simmering on the stove, but Sri Lankans have an affection for a dessert called Love Cake. And, given yesterday was Valentine's Day, I couldn't resist the connection.

Forget heart-shaped chocolates and corny Hallmarks (although I'm quite partial to beautiful words penned on a pretty card), AJ and I have a tradition of making a meal together on Valentine's Day. For us, the day is just another excuse to cook and eat. In my book, food really is the way to anyone's heart.

I did a wee bit of research on Love Cake and it seems no-one really knows its origins. It's said to be a lasting legacy of the Portuguese influence in Sri Lanka during the 16th and 17th centuries when they dominated the spice trade. The nutty, spicy cake is apparently served at birthdays and other celebratory occasions, so I didn't need any more convincing that it'd be the perfect gift for AJ.

Creating the cake wasn't difficult, especially because of my new-found cavalier attitude to egg separating, and love was certainly in the air as it baked - the smells that permeated from the oven were as heart-warming as a good cuddle. And the taste? Delicious. The blend of cashews, spices, rosewater and honey is great chemistry. Plus, it's good for the waistline - well, sort of. Because the flavours are quite intense and the texture is fairly dense, you only need a small piece to feel satisfied.

My advice, though: don't wait till next Valentine's Day to woo your love with this cake - it's too good to wait a whole year for. Enjoy x

 

To create the stencil, just cut out letters from a piece of paper and sprinkle over some icing sugar.

plate 6: china

Being with AJ, who’s half Chinese, has opened me up to the culinary marvels of the enormous country that is China. This week I felt like I cheated a little because the two dishes I cooked I’ve made before. But I chose them because, not only do I like the taste of them, they remind me of fun times with AJ and his family.

Friday night was spent creating “jook”. Jook is the Cantonese way to say “zhou” which is the Mandarin way of saying “congee”, which is apparently derived from the Tamil word kanji, meaning "boilings". However you say it, it’s hearty, tasty and has many uses, as I discovered.

To me, jook symbolises breakfast at AJ’s parents' place over the Christmas holidays. But as I found out, it can be eaten for breakfast or a late supper, feed many in a famine, tame a troubled tummy or be used as baby food when a child is starting solids.

Most Asian countries have their own version, but essentially it’s a dish of rice cooked with water and some form of meat. It’s amazingly simple to make, especially when you use a slow cooker. Just pop the meat (I used a ham hock), chopped potatoes, rice and water in the slow cooker, set it to high for about 30 minutes then switch it to low to cook overnight. Almost as good as waking up to delicious smells wafting from the kitchen is the fact that you really don’t have to lift a finger and the meal is done. All you have to do is chop up some shallots to garnish. While you can use any meat – ham, chicken, turkey or beef – ham gives a lovely flavour so you don’t have to add much else to it.

Feeling energised from a big bowl of jook, we set to work on the next dish – wontons. Making wontons is a family affair at AJ’s parents' place – we call it the “wonton workshop”. We all gather round the island bench in the kitchen to make the filling and, using the mincer, watch the meat magically appear minced from the machine. We’re pros at this now – the first time we used the mincer we had huge troubles getting the meat to mince, only to realise we hadn’t actually put the blade in! The best part of making wontons is that we all stand around with our wonton wrappers, filling them and shaping them, all while talking about anything and everything. Great bonding time.

 

  

 

I highly recommend making a weekend of Chinese cooking at home – here are the recipes so you can have your own family cooking workshop. x

jook
Place 1 ham hock, 3 potatoes (peeled, chopped), 1 cup uncooked rice and 8 cups boiling water in a slow cooker. Pop the slow cooker lid on. Switch to high for 30 minutes or until the water is bubbling. Switch to low and cook for 8 hours. Top with chopped shallots and serve with toast.

wontons
Place 500g pork mince; a handful of dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked, finely chopped; 4 shallots, finely chopped; 1 teaspoon sesame oil; 2 teaspoons salt; and 3 teaspoons light soy sauce. Stir to combine.
Place a small amount of mixture onto a wonton wrapper and fold it up. (You’ll find the wonton wrappers in the chilled section of most supermarkets.) Here’s a quick youtube link to folding them – please excuse the music! Make your own chicken stock broth. Cook wontons in a saucepan of boiling water until they float to the top. Place in serving bowls and pour over the chicken broth.