International Noodle Incident - Vietnamese Noodle Salad

I couldn't be more happier for the theme of this International Incident Party to be noodles. I grew up eating many noodles dishes, pancit - which is one of the national dishes of The Philippines, toros teszta - hungarian noodles made with cottage cheese, the very sustainable krumplis teszta - hungarian noodles with potato and of course growing up in Australia - Spaghetti Bolognese ( pasta is noodles after all!). 


Of all the wonderful noodle dishes I love to cook, I chose this one because I feel that it is a dish not from a country that I have any cultural heritage with, but a noodle dish with my own little twist on it. I really love to cook this dish because it really is so incredibly tasty and satisfying.  A big bonus too, insanely healthy and a very sustainable meal to eat due to my modifications (the mungbean noodles are 35 GI in place of rice noodles which are 80+GI! that's ridiculously low!).  And my apologies for making a summer dish in the cringe of winter, but it was my first choice of noodle.


So anyway, my choice of noodles for the theme is: 

Vietnamese Noodle Salad 

Firstly there is my choice of noodles. Many would protest to say that these noodles are only used for cooking stir fried noodles and soup, but I actually prefer the texture of these noodles in place of rice stick vermicelli. It is important to let the noodles sit in the boiling water for 3-4 minutes to make sure they are cooked through enough. After you have drained the noodles, it is also important that you let all the moisture come out of them. This may take around 30 minutes and you will be able to tell because they will seem stuck together. It is important to do this because if you were to put them in strait after draining them, they would be hot and the dressing would just slide off them instead of absorb it. I tend not to rinse the noodles with any water at all because I found that this made them resistant to absorbing the dressing as well. So just let them sit in the strainer until they completely cool down and become stuck together. I find that if they're are prepared properly, they don't go soggy like the rice vermicelli. Of course you can use rice vermicelli if you prefer, but I choose the bean thread. Very healthy too!

As the majority of the ingredients in this dish are uncooked, it is very important that all ingredients are extremely fresh. You really need to be buying the ingredients the day before, if not the same day due to the short life of coriander, mint and bean shoots. Another tool that is very useful here is a julienne grater. I bought mine at an Asian grocer for $8. Before I had this, I julienned the carrot and cucumber by knife (with my bare hands!), quite a tedious task and made the preparation time longer than it should be. Using a julienne grater for this dish  will save a lot of time and strain. After all you still have to cut everything else as well.

For the salad


4 x 50g bean thread vermicelli
2 cucumbers
2 carrots
1 bunch mint
1 bunch coriander
handful of cleaned (tailed) bean shoots
2 spring onions (green part only)


Dressing: Nuoc Cham


1 small garlic clove
2 small red chillies
140ml fish sauce (nuoc man nhi) 
5 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp water
juice of 1 lemon


For garnish 


Chopped roasted peanuts
fried onion
finely sliced red chilli (optional)


Method
1. Place the bean thread in a heat proof bowl and cover noodles with boiling water for 3-4mins. Drain and leave to sit in strainer for 30 mins.
2. Wash all salad ingredients. 
3. Julienne carrot and cucumber. Slice green part of spring onions. Pinch the tails off the bean shoots. Remove mint for the stems and cut the coriander into 2cm pieces.
4. To make the dressing, pound the garlic and chilli in a mortar and pestle. Add all other ingredients and stir to ensure the sugar has dissolved.
5. Place the cooled noodles into a large mixing bowl. Put enough dressing on the noodles to absorb ( 5-6 tbsp ) and mix.
6. Add all other vegetables and add more dressing if needed.
7. Garnish with peanuts, fried onion and sliced chilli (optional!).

I served this salad along side my spring rolls which is whole other story and I won't get into now. You can also eat this salad as a one-bowl meal and cook some sliced beef fillet, quickly seared in a pan with some fish sauce and garlic (bun bo xao - vietnamese noodle salad with beef). Here I have put less noodles than usual because it was served along side the spring rolls. For a one-bowl meal I prefer to put more noodles but really it comes down to how much vegetables or noodles you like. I love my noodles!

Here's the list of everyone else's contribution! 

• Penny – Jeroxie (Addictive & Consuming) – Homemade ban mian with minced pork and mushrooms
• Christine – Christine’s Recipes – Spicy Pork Mince and Noodles in Crisp Lettuce Cups
• Mardi – Eat, Live, Travel, Write – Ginger scallion & Butter noodles
• Trix – Tasty Trix – Summer ‘Noodles’ with yellow and green zuchinni with cool basil oil tomato sauce
• Shirley – Enriching your kid – Vermicilli Biryani with Tahini
• Natasha – 5 Star Foodie – Homemade Soba Noodles
• Anges – Off the spork – Handpulled noodles at home
• Joanne – Second Helping
• Cherry – Sweet Cherry Pie – Coconut noodles with honey glazed pork belly
• Tracey - Tangled Noodle – Fork in the Road: North Platte Noodles
• Evelyne - Cheap Ethnic Eatz – Incidental Noodles
• Ms Baklover - Footscray Food Blog – Zha Jiang Mian
• Casey – Eating, Gardening & Living in Bulgari
• Tamar – Koreanfornian Cooking – Tteokbokki
• Billy – Half-Eaten – Pumpkin Miso Noodles in Shitake Dashi Broth
• Suresh – 3 hungry tummies – Twice cooked pork with rice noodles
• Anh – A food Lover’s Journey – Taco Soba Noodle
• Lori – Wannabe Gourmand – Nonya Curry Laksa
• Malou – Skip to Malou – Fried Noodle Dish

Coda

It was a few weeks back now that Doben and I finally payed a visit to Coda to celebrate his birthday. Like always, a first visit to a new place is a mix of excitement and fear.. 

First we had a salmon gravlax with baby vegetables and goats cheese was our absolute favourite dish of the entire meal. The salmon was perfect, vegetables, cheese, the whole thing just worked so incredibly well. I would go back just to eat this but unfortunately it only comes as a starter size. I was so overwhelmed eating this I would go back to eat this but I might have to order 3 serves!

After my amazing salmon salad were crispy rice paper rolls with a very tasty mix of pork and black fungus. I have to say, I have eaten these in Tien An in Footsgray and the skin was very crunchy. Unfortunately these had a chewy texture, which was a bit disappointing when I was anticipating the same crunch we found in Footscray. It was a shame because my Doben and I absolutely adore Vietnamese hot mint with spring rolls. I have tried to make these fried rice paper rolls at home but I couldn't distinguish between the rice paper for the fresh rolls and the fried ones. Mine were most definitely the wrong rice paper and had very similar texture to these. 

Next were spanner crab betel "beetle" leaves. They were fresh and delicate. The flavours of the pomelo, lime and galangal all worked together with the crab very nicely. 

Quail lettuce delight - I loved the sauce used here and the combination of the shitake mushrooms, water chestnuts, lup cheong and quail was literally mouth-watering at each bite. 

Bone marrow spring rolls. Intense.

Lastly was our roasted yellow duck curry with taro chips. We were expecting to get a Thai or Malay inspired curry, but this curry was definitely Indian inspired. The spices were quite strong which I suppose suited the strong flavour of the duck. Maybe a personal preference of curry style, but we found the spices a bit too strong and it overwhelmed our palates a bit more than we wanted. We were quite full and still in 'bone marrow shock' so this may have influenced our palates at this stage.

And so we fled, quite ironically to Longrain for dessert and a drink.

Our flavour packed pork and prawn betel leaves alongside some very strong drinks to end of the night with a bit of kick..

Finally our dessert of taro and coconut pudding with roasted coconut ice cream which was amazing!

Longrain's desserts are insanely good. Really, they have dessert like no where else in Melbourne that I've tried. I have eaten a similar taro pudding to the one served in the Philippines, but in combination with the roasted coconut ice cream and the palm sugar syrup, it becomes something else. Last time we ate a custard apple and coconut trifle with coconut ice cream which just the same left us speechless. Can't wait to go back for more.

April Mildura Visit

Although I mentioned I was eager to return to Stefano's this visit, I was again, tight on time, so even better I spent more time with my dear family instead. I still had many culinary joys, the one most memorable: harvesting my parents backyard garden. It is still a very young garden, so the little that I harvested was a special batch.  

Mildura never fails to give me beautiful calm sunny days when I visit, a nice break from the windy grey days that Melbourne has been lately..

So back in Melbourne, I was to put my small harvest to so good use. As for all the bell chillies, they were blended with some garlic and salt then put in jars with some diced lemon to make a zingy sambal for everyday use. I came across a Nonna selling some passata in beer bottles at the Sunday Market, so pasta time it was, I made some veal and pork polpette. My polpette consisted of veal and pork mince, fresh bread crumbs, parsley, grana padano and egg. I bought some fresh pasta from David Jones Food Hall, as Donninis was too far and I was too late to get there in time.

                        

Short Visit to Mildura

Over my short visit to Mildura we decided to have a light lunch at Stefano's Cafe Bakery. I didn't have enough free time to go have dinner at his restaurant, will try and make some time next trip back. 

Overall I would say we had a pleasant lunch. The service definitely needs a total overhaul, but wasn't so bad that we left disgruntled. Let's just say I'll be heading back when I return to Mildura in a few weeks to see what they have for lunch! 

Doben chose a better dish than mine as always - Moroccan lamb with couscous - an absolute delight at every mouthful. I really loved the combination of the couscous, with the braised lamb, the yoghurt and tart tomato chutney. Would go back to eat this, but their menu changes daily!

My slightly average stuffed fritto misto of eggplant and red capsicum, still with a lot of flavour, but probably could have been better if it was freshly cooked..

I made some Sarma for my Tata's 80th Birthday. Whole sauerkrauts are difficult to buy in Mildura (let alone anywhere?) unless you have some stored in your garage, so instead I just par-boiled the whole cabbage leaves so the leaves could be rolled. Obviously the sour taste of the sauerkrauts was absent but I was pleased with the result. My filling included a mix a veal and pork mince, garlic, onion, parsley, paprika, rice and egg.

Final product - Nana and Tata were very pleased :) 

And here are some green beans that my mum's friend had picked the same day we cooked them. From plant to mouth in less than 5 hours - that's what it's all about.

Salad of fresh white peach, prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella

It's only a few sleeps now before I head off to the Philippines, so I'm feeling desperate to enjoy some food that I know I'll be out of reach for a month. I went for a stroll around Vic Market yesterday to see what looked good and came across some white peaches that reminded me of the salad featured in the Epicure pull-out in The Age this Tuesday.

Bill's Farm could quite possibly be the only delicatessen in Vic Market that will slice you their hams on purchase and don't kick up a fuss about minimum weight purchases. I couldn't go past their parma prosciutto that would go perfect with the peaches and an immaculate white ball of buffalo milk mozzarella. 

Salad of fresh white peach, prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella

1 cup watercress

1/2 cup torn basil leaves
1 white peach cut into 8 pieces
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
 squeeze of 1/2 lemon
 1 buffalo mozzarella  

6 slices of freshly sliced prosciutto

• Scatter watercress and basil on a plate and tear mozzarella into chunks around salad.
• Place prosciutto and peaches around salad and dress with a sqeeze of lemon and drizzle with oil.
• Season with sea salt and cracked pepper.

Serves 2 as a side

This is such a simple salad which really relies on the freshest and highest quality produce. The prosciutto was so silky to eat along with the fresh peaches and the creaminess of the buffalo mozzarella made the salad come together perfectly. I ate this for my lunch the same day I went to the market but would go great as a part of a meal along side some grilled seafood or meat. A fantastic summer salad.

Source: Inspired by - Salad of fresh peach, serrano ham and buffalo mozzarella, Caroline Velik, Epicure The Age 19/01/10

Festive Baking Sessions

Amidst the frantic choas that was my Christmas, I had planned to make something special for my family.

This is the first recipe I attempted from Bourke Street Bakery - very exciting indeed! As I ranted on previously, this is such a fabulous baking bible which I would love to cook more recipes from in the future.

The section I absolutely adore in this book is the tarts. My tart love was born after tasting the amazing creations at Dolcetti such as pannacotta tart, burnt lemon tart, cherry & walnut crostata, and so SO many more - all divine. So very fittingly, it was only a matter of time I had a go at it myself.

My choice was to make the summer berry custard tarts. I started the very long process of making the shortcrust pasty on Christmas night. This involved rubbing the butter into the flour then gathering the dough to rest for two hours, rolling the dough and resting overnight. I also made creme patisserie for the filling.

When boxing day came, I would cut the dough into discs and mould into the tart tins. This would then need to be frozen for 20mins. I then blind baked them and filled them with the creme pattiserie once cooled. My mum had some excellent fresh and ripe peaches grown in her friend's backyard so I decided to make them into fruit tarts.

 What a joy they were to assemble and present. My long preparation was really worth it. I loved how they looked, and too, they tasted wonderful. My family were just as pleased as I and overall I would say it was a success. I will definitely make them again. I need to work on the consistency or of the custard as it was a little runny but overall I was very happy for my first time.

Delicious baking success!

Modern Thai

Longrain restaurant is definitely, not your average 'Thai' food. Initially I was very reluctant to try out Longrain as I often eat at Ying Thai at Richmond and Ying Thai 2 at Carlton, which is very authentic and has good prices. To be honest I thought, "Why would I pay more to eat Thai food that isn't even made by a Thai person?"

But who am I to judge..

I wouldn't say that Longrain's food is authentic Thai, more of a modern take on Thai cusine which makes the most of the fresh produce in Australia and has a strong focus on the aesthetics in presenting their dishes. Needless to say the taste of Thailand is there: the definite presence of fish sauce, palm sugar, lime and yes, chilli. Not all dishes have the same heat as authentic Thai dishes, but still, despite the majority of their diners being non-Asian, the kitchen does not go light handed on the chilli, especially in the red curry dishes.

So after having new warmth towards modern Thai food, I decided to try some of the recipes from Martin Boetz's book: Longrain Modern Thai Food.

I really dread abiding by every ml and gm which goes with following recipes and because I learnt how to cook by watching my mother, grandmother and many other people I have passed throughout my time so far. Measuring every ingredient becomes very tedious and frustrating for me. I cooked this small banquet ( for 2 people ) and followed most of the measurements but added the palm sugar and fish sauce according to my familiarity with these ingredients as I use them quite often. 

There really is no point of me noting the recipes as I didn't follow them so please just enjoy my photos!

Betel Leaves with Prawn and Pork

I also adapted the recipes to what I ate at Longrain, as the book has a recipe for Betel Leaves with Smoked Trout with Galangal and Trout Roe, I replaced the fish with pork and prawn instead.

Eggnets with Pork, Prawn and Beansprouts

Green Curry with Flathead Tails

I also replaced the prawn and vegetables in the Green Curry with flathead tails as I already had two dishes with prawns.

Mango, Raspberry and Coconut Custard Parfait

This meal was fantastic. Both Doben and I were so surprised how similar the taste was to what we ate at Longrain. Although it took a lot of time to prep and follow so many recipes, it was all worth the effort in the end.

Longrain 

44 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne 

Ying Thai 2

110 Lygon St, Carlton

Ying Thai

235 Victoria St, Abbotsford

Káposztasaláta (Hungarian Coleslaw)

After eating too many rice meals days on end, I decided it was time to revisit some of my childhood food. As we all do, I absolutely adored my Grandmother's cooking. My family would devour delicious Magyar food everytime we visited my grandparent's house and had many generous feasts on birthdays and religious celebrations.

One side dish that would always be a part of a banquet was káposztasaláta, which is Hungarian style coleslaw. It is quite different from the coleslaw that Australians are familiar with, as there is an absence of mayonnaise. In turn, the dish is beautifully light and refreshing, perfectly complimenting the heavy meaty dishes that Hungarians enjoy.

Being able to make a perfect káposztasaláta is some what a right of passage for a Hungarian girl. Despite only being half Hungarian (from my father's side), this is still one dish that I need to do right! On the occasions that I prepared this salad from my grandparents (Nana & Tata), they strongly approved. phew!

After all, the recipe was passed on from Nana and she is the expert.

So there are a few things that are very important in getting this dish right:

• Firstly you need super fresh cabbage! Not that I should even have to mention always using fresh produce, but really, what you are trying to achieve with this dish is crunchy sweet fresh cabbage. If the cabbage was old you will definitely end up angry Hungarians, and you DO NOT want that.
• You need to make sure to slice the cabbage as FINE as possible. You will definitely need your knife to be super sharp and have patience because if the cabbage shreds are thick, the whole dish turns out wrong.

Ingredients

1/4 of a large cabbage - finely shredded

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp white sugar

1 tsp apple cider / white vinegar

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Method

1. Finely shred cabbage with a sharp knife and place in a bowl.
2. Add salt, sugar, cider/ vinegar and oil to shredded cabbage and mix to distribute ingredients.
3. Leave the cabbage for 15 minutes, mixing the salad every 5 minutes. This time will allow the cabbage to slightly pickle and give a good texture.

This salad is perfect with crumbed veal schnitzel and roasted paprika potatoes as I have here. Any other heavy meat dishes would also go well such as roast/ grilled meats, sausages or meatloaf.

Recipe: Nana Margita Koroknai