Jeroxie - Addictive & Consuming

Meatless Day Challenge #8 – Summer vegetables

Meatless Day Challenge #Week8

It has been really hectic with Chinese New Year just round the corner. This whole weekend was dedicated to CNY cookies and tarts. So there is no recipe this week. What I have is a tribute to the beautiful fresh vegetables that I bought from Veg out at St. Kilda farmers market. Some may say I am silly but I do get excited when I see a nice piece of meat. And I do get excited when I see lovely vegetables. Especially summer vegetables. They are so bright, colourful and cheery.

Fresh vegetables from the farmers market

Earlier that day, I cooked 5 different rice mix – white, brown, black, red and wild. Minus the white, the rest of the rice types are pretty damn good for you. Brown rice has always been known to be more nutritious than white and known to cure constipation in the food old days. Red rice is known to aid in digestion and in revitalising the blood. Black rice is very high in fiber and changes to a purple colour when cooked. Wild rice is gluten free, high in fiber and protein.

5 different types of rice

The overall texture of the rice is very chewy. It also tastes much nuttier. And the whole pot of rice has turned a lovely purple colour. It must be stained either from the black or red rice. I knew it will look even better with my selection of vegetables that I had in mind for it.

Cooked mixed rice

I decided to add fresh herbs that I had picked from our little vegetables patch. The spring onion and the coriander had such intense flavour and so aromatic as well.

Herbs from the garden

I simply stir fried the vegetables with finely chopped habanero and small chillies, light soy sauce, mirin and season it with salt and white pepper. The mixed rice was added to the mixture and given a good stir. Taste and season. The fresh herbs is the last puzzle of this very simple but delicious dinner.

Fresh vegetables and rice stir fry

Out of the loot, I used sweet corn, all 3 capsicums, string beans and zucchini. It may just be vegetables but we were very happy to eat it. The fresh vegetables was naturally sweet and not much seasoning was required. I made a big batch so it will not just be going meatless for a day this week

What is your favourite herb this season?

Steamed silky eggs

Cookbook Challenge Week 12 - Eggs

I knew exactly what I wanted to make once I saw this week’s challenge. And as many simple dishes, it is usually the hardest to perfect. As an egg lover, steam eggs has to be one of my favourite egg dishes. I love the way it wobbles when it is done perfectly. I love the silky smooth texture. And I love the taste and aroma. It is all about the egg.

After a day of Chinese New Year baking and an hour of RPM class, I almost gave up on the challenge this week. This weekend seem to fly by. And Chinese New Year is just round the corner. Sometimes I wish time could slow down but then it waits for no one. And so I just got onto it and made some eggs as part of our dinner.

This recipe is taken from a book that Mister bought from Malaysia – Hawkers Fair Simplified. It is so old-skool but it has helpful tips on making chicken and pork stock. There are a few recipes in this book that I found quite interesting – Coffee spare ribs? But what the hell is custard powder and why?

Hawker Fair Simplified

Ingredients:

3 eggs
300ml water
1tsp light soy sauce
1/2tsp sesame oil
finely chopped spring onion
white pepper

3 eggs

Method:

Combine lightly whisked eggs and water in a bowl
Steam at low heat for 10mins of until set
Sprinkle spring onions, light soy sauce, sesame oil and white pepper. Serve hot

Custard egg

The book has advise to steam at low heat and not to whisk the eggs too much as it will create air bubbles and so affect its smooth and silky texture. I still have yet to make the perfect silky steam eggs. But this will do for now. If you have a good tip, please let me know!

What is your favourite egg dish of all time? Please share.

Making Melbourne’s best dumplings

A conversation on twitter about dumplings when I posted my disappointment in Hutong and how hard it was to find good dumpling places in Melbourne. When I arrived here more than a decade to go, Camy was the place to go for good, cheap and yummy dumplings. The fried dumplings had a nice crispy bottom and juicy fillings. These days, they serve soggy fried dumplings that tastes like cardboard. Don’t get me wrong, there are good and reasonable places but how hard can it be to serve decent dumplings. They are relatively cheap, easy and quick to make.

Anyway, I believe that the conversation started with @thatjessho, @cloudcontrol and myself. And I thought it would be a great idea to have a dumplings party. We had a good response from twitterverse and tweeps were raising their hands to the occasion. We set a date and venue (much thanks to @thatjessho) and were pumped to attempt to make Melbourne’s best dumplings.

Garlic chives

Fresh ginger

I was confident that some of the food bloggers will turn up with prawn and pork fillings. So I decided that I will make vegetarian ones. I thought that the challenge was not in the dumpling filling but the dough. I found a hot dough recipe on Fuji Mama’s blog! My fears of it being in the ‘too hard basket’ was unfounded.

Mung bean noodle

Ingredients:

Garlic chive filling

1 bunch of garlic chives, finely chopped
20g mung bean noodles, soaked soft and cut into little strands
20g cup dried black mushrooms, hydrate, de-stemmed and finely diced
1 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
3 cloves of finely grated garlic
1tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
Salt and white pepper for seasoning
1 small egg

Garlic Chive mixture

Dough

1 cup of flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup of water (this varies)

Hot water dough

Method:

Dough

Sift one cups of flour into a bowl and add a pinch of salt
Have about 1/2 cup of boiling at hand. Add 1/4 cup first and use a chopstick to stir the flour around. Add little by little until you can form the mixture into a ball.
Allow the dough to rest in a bowl covered with a damp cloth for about an hour
If the dough is a little dry, just knead it until smooth
Cut it into little disc or blocks, flatten and roll into a thin disc
To make the perfect circle, use a round cookie cutter or use a little chinese sauce container and trim it
Dust some flour and set aside

Cutting dough into perfect disc

We started with 4 interested parties and a week before the party, we had about 18. But on the day itself, there were 8 of us. So kudos to bloggers - Superkawaiimama, jetsettingjoyce, petitevalse, thatjessho, cookinwithgoths, cloudcontrol, th0i3 for making this happen. And also special credits to Mister (@th0i3) for taking photos for us as our hands were all pre-occupied and for allowing me to use the photos on my blog

Deep in concentration

It was all hands in. Jess and I were hard at work in rolling out our dough. Not all dumplings were made with fresh dough, there were store bought skins. So the rest started filling the skin and pinching to make pretty dumplings. It felt really good standing together and getting our hands dirty for a yummy outcome. I have made gyoza before but not made my own dough so to me, it was a sense of achievement and could not believe how simple it is. There is no doubt that I will making dumplings from scratch from now on

I can still remember the face on Jess when we took the first bite of home-made dumplings with fresh dough. She just lit up and broke into big smile and we high five each other. Pure bliss. Absolutely priceless. Maybe Mastercard should get us bloggers to do an ad for them.

Working hard

I am not really good with pinching dumplings. The trick as disclose by Celeste is to start pinching from the centre and then down both sides. I guess it worked as my dumplings started looking much better. Still no attention to detail but it kept the filling in

Pinching dumpling

We have no idea how many dumplings we made and ate. It had to be more than 200 and even 300? It was a great collaboration. And it was not just food bloggers that turned up. That is the joy of cooking. It brings people together. Our main focus was to make dumplings and eat them.

Visit @th0i3 flickr for more photos

dumplings everywhere

Everyone made a great effort of rolling, filling, pinching, cooking and eating. It was eaten steamed, boiled and pan fried. We made gyoza, big siew mai, ones that look like char siew bao (pork dumplings) and wontons. And yes, we have made Melbourne’s best tasting dumplings. Mission completed.

Thanks again for the company. And for those that missed out this time, I am sure we can arrange another dumpling party. Till the next time.

How do you like your dumpling done – steamed, pan-fried, boiled?

Charcoal Lane

Charcoal Lane
136 Getrude Street
Fitzroy, Vic 3065
Website
Google map

I first visited Charcoal Lane in September last year. This white building used to be home of Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (VAHS). I have shady memories of walking past a prominent black, yellow and red coloured building almost everyday to and from Uni. And now it has become this white and somewhat majestic building. From the outside, one would never think that this is a restaurant. It will be good if there are big glass windows or glass doors to peer into this elegant looking restaurant.

Charcoal Lane

Charcoal Lane isn’t just any other restaurant, it is one with a mission. It’s set up by Mission Australia and they work in close partnership with the Victorian Government and the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service. It is a Social enterprise restaurant that provides a chance to disadvantaged Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal kids. The kitchen is lead by Damien Styles that has a impressive CV and a passion to give back to the community.

Part 1 – Lunch at Charcoal lane

All 6 of us at the table ordered the same entree – Smoked eel and john dory terrine, pickled cucumber salad and oyster fritter. This dish definitely went down very well with all of us. I love the subtle smokiness of the eel and the freshness of the whole dish. It is one of the more memorable dish in 2009 for me. I was a little disappointed that it is no longer on the menu.

I ordered the House-made parpadelle with a duck and (king) mushroom ragout. The pasta was so well made and silky thin. And I was really impressed with the olive oil used that I had to get details about it. It was called Yellingbo Gold extra virgin olive oil. I remembered that it was aromatic and fruity.

Matt (interstate blogger) was the only one that ordered the fish dish – Confit king salmon fillet, white asparagus, caper butter & herb salad. We all had a little taste of the beautifully and perfectly cooked fish.

Ed ordered the pumpkin gnocchi, fried sage, macadamia nut butter and saltbush. I remembered that he was very pleased with his dish and refused it to share with anyone else. There weren’t too many pieces to share and if it was that good, I wouldn’t share either.

fettuccine, smoked eel and dory, salmon

Part 2 – Dinner at Charcoal lane

After meeting @jetsettingjoyce at Nuffnang party in December last year, we decided to have dinner together in the new year. I quickly suggested Charcoal lane. And after reading the raving review on The Age, I was very excited to check out the new menu.

The meal started with a complimentary amuse bouche of tomato gazpacho. It was seriously refreshing and I wondered if the same olive oil that I love so much was used in this dish. I love it! It was a round table nod of approval.

Amuse bouche - Tomato gazpacho

We ordered a selection of appetisers to share. Spiced prawns have always been a personal favourite. I didn’t think it needed the chilli dip but it is a personal preference. It would have been great with beer and in my case, cider. The idea of the popcorn was more of a fun thing to have. The marinated Saluté olives is my personal favourite. I thought it was very interesting and somehow reminded me of Chinese preserved fruits. The bush herb marinate was not at all overpowering and actually enhanced the flavour of the olives.

Selection of appetitsers

@jetsettingjoyce and I ordered the native peppered kangaroo fillet, shallot and bush tomato tart with rosella jus. This piece of meat is best ate rare. It was very tender and well cooked piece of meat. The rosella jus was so well balanced. Slightly tangy with the right amount of sweetness. And the shallots just brought the whole dish together. The only criticism that we had we wished that it was served a little warmer.

native peppered kangaroo fillet, shallot and bush tomato tart with rosella jus

Mister and Ms I ordered the roast pork loin, compressed apple, davidson plum sauce and crackling. The whole table gasped with delight when the first plate of sous vide of roast pork loin was served to the table. The pink blush of meat that is super tender and juicy. And this was one of the best crackling I have in Melbourne. The amount of sauce is perfect and worked so well with everything on the dish. The compressed apple had a nice sweet tang, the plum provided the sweetness and the crackling provided the x factor for this dish.

roast pork loin, compressed apple, davidson plum sauce and crackling

Mr. T and Ms V ordered the pumpkin gnocchi with macadamia nuts, fried sage, pepitas and saltbush. This is a dish that has been kept on the menu since the last time I was here. It is a good dish. This is one of the few places that actually does good gnocchi. It is not soggy. It had good deep flavour. And it makes you want more of it. A very simple and effective vegetarian dish to have on the menu.

macadamia nuts, fried sage, pepitas and saltbush

Mr. A ordered the john dory, smoked eel brandade, pickled samphire and candied pancetta. I only had a tiny bite of john dory and it was cooked very well. I should order this the next time if it is still on the menu.

john dory, smoked eel brandade, pickled samphire and candied pancetta

Not everyone on the table were having dessert so @jetsettingjoyce and I decided to share the dessert platter. I love to say I liked the dessert but in comparison with the rest of the meal and dishes, it fell short. The presentation is stunning. I loved the attention to detail and the fun that the chef (I think) is trying to inject into his desserts. My least favourite was the raspberries, rosella flowers and vanilla custard. I did not understand the dish. Mister ordered this plate of dessert as well and found it too tart. Maybe more custard or sweetness to the dish might make it better? The apple and olive oil cake definitely stood out amongst the rest. The cake was moist and just perfect sweetness.

Dessert platter

I was glad that I had the opportunity to have a chat with the Head Chef, Damien Styles, after dinner. He is so passionate about the work and kids. And I hope they know how lucky they are to be able to learn from him. Gosh! I wish had the opportunity to spend one day in his kitchen as well. I sincerely hope that more social enterprises will be set up to give the disadvantaged a chance to find a place in this society.

Are there social enterprises that you know of in your area and how do they contribute to the community?

Meatless Day Challenge #8 – Summer vegetables

Steamed silky eggs

Making Melbourne’s best dumplings

Charcoal Lane

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