Vietnamese and Japanese inspired feast

The Central Markets in Adelaide have a lot to answer for!! The "old" food court as we refer to it, on the Western side of Moonta Street, has the best place for Vietnamese food I've come across. Over the years I became a great fan of dish #11, or, bun cha gao, and consequently I have developed my own version of the meal to suit my tastes and cooking styles.

Essentially I see the dish like a big cold roll opened out in to the bowl! We have shredded lettuce, cucumber, mint leaves and bean shoots under some rice vermicelli, julienned carrot, snow peas, a beef and onion in lemongrass mixture, and topped with fried shallots and crushed cashews.

As mum doesn't eat a lot of meat, I also make the dish with spring rolls to either top the noodles or to serve on the side.

A chilli vinegarette is poured over the dish and by the time you finally get to the bottom of it, the remaining vegetables and noodles are in a sweet and sour soup.

 
A meal at a Japanese restaurant on Brisbane's Southbank inspired the tofu dish I make to accompany the Vietnamese feast. Agedashi tofu is a fried (age) tofu in a fish (dashi) stock sauce. Because of mum's intolerance to fish I avoid the dashi component. But I have developed a gorgeous silky sauce to pour over the potato starch fried firm tofu pieces - equal parts mirin and ponzu (citrus soy), with chopped spring onions and chilli. 
 

By the time the hot starchy crust on the tofu has softened in the sauce, it leaves a sticky gooey texture on the bottom of the tofu piece and it absolutely melts in your mouth.

The meal is very fresh, very 'clean' eating (apart from the fried tofu - but it's hot, shallow oil so it doesn't absorb much). It's also the kind of meal which expands as you eat it... and there never seems to be an end in sight!

 The final feast:

Tomato and Chilli Salsa

Every couple of months I make up a batch of this Tomato and Chilli Salsa. It's great to just leave in the tub in the fridge then add to the side of your plate with chicken, beef, pork, fish, actually just about anything. It's also great to use as a dip with crackers and cheese platter or to add some zing to your toasted sandwich for lunch! The chilli components are entirely optional if you prefer something a little more gentle on the palette.

You may begin to notice I'm not really a fan of using quantities in recipes (unless it is for a specific baking recipe like cakes and pastries and finer items), hence the below list doesn't give a lot of detail. I'm hoping most people can judge whether a "good dollop" is the appropriate quantity or a "smidgen" is more suited to the recipe!

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Onion - red, white or brown, chopped
• Garlic - crushed or minced
• Chillies - chopped, optional
• Ginger - grated
• Tomatoes - peeled and seeded, chopped
• 1 Cup lightly packed soft brown sugar
• 1 Cup basil - chopped
• 1 Cup red wine vinegar
• 1/3 Cup dry sherry
• Sweet chilli sauce

 Method:

1. Soften the onion, garlic, chillies, ginger in the oil. Do not allow to brown.
2. Add the chopped tomato pieces. Remember, a salsa is quite rustic, so there's no need to be fine and delicate with the ingredients. The original recipe I sourced this from suggested to peel the tomatoes too but I find the skin adds more texture to the final product.
3. Once the tomato is warmed through in the mix, add the remaining ingredients: basil, sugar, vinegar, sherry and a good couple of tablespoons of chilli sauce.
   
   
4. Stir until well combined. Reduce to a simmer and allow to thicken and become dark and syrupy over the next 1 to 2 hours. The mix will require stirring frequently to ensure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.
5. The salsa will continue to thicken on cooling so it's fine to turn the heat off with a bit of liquid and softness still in the mix.

Arrrgh me hearty vegetable soup

A few years ago, it was routine that mum and I would do the rounds of the local farmers markets and stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables. I hate to say, but the quality of the produce has significantly deteriorated over the years, and what's worse is that the prices have increased. Nevertheless, we decided to do the rounds again this weekend. Over Saturday and Sunday we covered three markets, one fruit barn and one supermarket so I could get all the ingredients to make three specific items over the next couple of days:

1. Vegetable Soup
2. Vietnamese/Japanese dinner
3. Tomato and chilli salsa

It was planned to have the Vietnamese/Japanese dinner tonight, but by the time 4pm rolled around, I just couldn't be bothered cooking! So, I pulled out all the veggies from the fridge to make the soup.

I have no recipe for most of the main meal foods I make, and soup is one of those things where you can add whatever your tastebuds desire! Tonight we had leek, capsicum,celery, onion, zucchini, sweet potato, potato, butternut pumpkin, peas, corn, carrot, garlic, chicken stock and a tin of diced tomatoes.

Winter is the ideal time for making huge batches of vegetable soup, but summer is great for being able to eat it cold as if it were gazpacho!

It only took 45 minutes to cook the vegetables nice and soft.

Served with some hot multi-grain bread rolls, there was more than sufficient for three meals and plenty of left overs! Oh, sprinkle some grated parmesan and cracked black pepper on top when serving for some extra flavour.

New content coming right up

You may have noticed that I'm not particularly consistent with my blog posts, but then, I have noticed there aren't exactly many of you who read them anyway! But since this does post to my Twitter and Facebook accounts, I'd like to think there's some promotion of my words out there. Still, I'd like to be able to increase my posting frequency, and in looking at my Twitter type activity I think the blog would be best to take a new direction by way of the Four F's:

1. Food: whether it be recording what I make at home with recipes and photos, what I try at restaurants, or even what I desire to try
2. Fashion: Clothes, shoes, style perspectives, brand names
3. Fitness: Reports of my own progress with gym work or opinion pieces relating to health and well being
4. Fun: I do recall someone once telling me I don't know how to have fun. Bah! This will cover the remaining random topics such as travel, photography, personal events and general rants (because yabbering on about something can be fun, right?)

If there's anything else you know about me that you'd like me to include, just zap me a message one way or another.

Also, if anyone knows of an ideal blog template that would suit this kind of four category system, please let me know. Whilst I like my pink girly page, I think I need a more definitive way of identifying my categories and interests.

xxM

Super Manda Smash Kart!!

I was involved in a little bingle with the car yesterday. Actually, I ended up with half of a Ford Focus under my tail end on the X-trail. Fortunately there were no significant injuries, no major dramas, and there was a lovely thing called insurance. But, it got me thinking (actually, my mind has been racing all night from it)...

The whole process of an insurance claim after an accident is a funny thing. You spend a brief period of time with the other persons involved in the accident at the scene - let's say up to half an hour. That's a very confronting, emotional and almost intimate time to spend with a complete stranger. Both parties are usually quite vulnerable, and nobody ever thinks clearly in that situation. You exchange personal details - name, address, phone number. If you're thinking straight enough, even drivers licence and insurance information. But you then walk away (in the best case instances), still somewhat in shock, thinking about all the phone calls and arrangements you now need to make. Once your insurance company has been informed, they often ask if you can provide a claim number from the other party (especially if the other party is liable). So, you go back to your scrappy piece of paper with shock-induced scrawl as handwriting, to find the other person's phone number. The idea of calling them seems daunting - will you be greeted pleasantly, or with hostility? Were they legitimate in their details to start with? Are they going through with the claim or will they deny everything? So, you send an SMS instead!! "Please let me know of any claim details from your insurance so I can provide it to my insurer to get the repairs underway. Thanks." or something to that effect.

After a couple of brief pleasantries with required information contained within, you generally never hear from the other party again. You don't know how their car went at the repairers; you don't know how they pulled up mentally and physically post-smash.

You have this massive encounter with a total stranger in a potentially dangerous and high-risk scenario, only to never have any interaction with them again. It's quite bizarre to think someone has such impact on your life at the time (think of the inconvenience and expense you are left with) and then they vanish almost as quickly as they appeared.