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It’s funny to see the spiral fountain at Darling Harbour without kids in it. Why do kids love it so much, I wonder. Why do they take the long way around it to get to the core when they can just walk straight across to it?
In the end, it’s all about the walk and pleasure itself rather than GETTING THERE; You might see or feel something interesting or even meet someone special along the way to enrich your life, though it might take longer than others to get to where they might want or need to be. But how long it takes doesn’t really matter, does it? We are heading in the same direction after all. No hurrying or rushing. It is so true when it comes to cooking.
I’ve been watching French shows lately to prepare myself with the knowledge of European cooking and learned the art of rolling, which end up on restaurant menus with the French word roulade. As I watched the chef elaborate with chicken fillets by stuffing them and then rolling them with spinach leaves and then again with pastry, I thought to myself if a dish involved that much of effort before landing on a plate I would eat very slowly appreciating every bite of it with ‘Umm’s and ‘Wow’s.
<Pepitas Pesto>
I had some extra time one weekend and, inspired by the cooking show, thought I might put my rustic cooking aside and make something more intricate and artful. Sole Roulade! To start off, I made pesto with pepitas instead of usual pine nuts, which I really liked, and I made a cheese and tomato sandwich with it to take to work for the next few days. It makes great sauce for pasta dishes as well.
The choice for fish was ling fillet, which wasn’t the right sort that I had in mind for the recipe because it wasn’t wide enough to roll, but I didn’t see any other suitable fish that day at the market. Then after some brainstorming for the stuffing, I settled for zucchini and carrot, so I shredded them and pan fried them slightly. Then came the rolling part and it wasn’t a complicated job for me at all; I have years of experience in rolling sushi and kimbab. The one thing that went wrong in making this was that I forgot to cook the rolled fish before rolling in filo pastry, so the juice oozed out during baking and made a bit of a mess.
<Sole Roulade>
This dish was surprisingly satisfying, bursting with flavours, and the texture of the fish was so meaty that one could mistake it for chicken. I’m not sure if i would have liked it as much, if I had used more delicate fish. The prominent flavour here was basil from the pesto and I think that rather gave away more Italian feel than French, so I might use thyme next time and see how differently it works with fish. Although the outer filo layers add crispiness and crunchiness, therefore extra character, to the dish, you can skip it if you think it is a bit of hassle.
Pepitas Pesto
a bunch of basil
1/2 c slightly toasted pepitas
1/3 c extra virgin olive oil
1 glove garlic
1/4 c parmesan cheese, grated
salt&pepper to taste
Put seeds and basil in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped , and add the rest and process it.
Sole Roulade
3-4 fillets of white fish
filo pastry (one sheet for each fillet)
spinach leaves(optional)
For the filling
1 zucchini, shredded
1 carrot, shredded
1/2 onion, finely sliced
Pan fried all until it just turns soft and set aside to cool
For the lemon butter sauce
3 Tbs butter
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 c white wine
chives chopped
Spread the pesto over each fillet sprinkled with a bit of salt and place filling, then roll it.
Continue the same process with the remaining fillets and bake them for 5 mins at 180 ‘c.
Cover each fillet with spinach leaves before wraping it in filo pastry.
Bake it at 180′c for 12-15 mins until gold.
Serve the whole fillet as a main dish with the lemon butter sauce or serve it sliced as an entree or capanes.
Do you believe in the saying, “When it rains, it pours.”? I got my foot injured three weeks ago, which I am still suffering from, to make things worse, something happened last week, which made me disappointed and frustrated more than any life events possibly could; my treasured camera died! I started to doubt why these tragedies keep occurring. It seems as if my monotonous life needed spicing up? Why with the spices I am averse to? Why not with the ones I adore? Because I wouldn’t have known their taste otherwise?
I read in a book that in a natural world the amount of good and evil was fixed, which means if a tragic event happens, then to compensate something good happens. To apply the theory, would it be fair to say that I was devastated by my broken camera, but I will soon be happy to get a better camera? Hmm…. What about this one? Because of my broken camera the guy in the camera service shop will make money and so will the camera company I will buy my next camera from?
It have been a strange few days without the camera, not having to think about scoring shots of food that I have made and eaten. That certainly saved K from frustration of having to wait in front of food, with hunger, until some shots have been taken, every time we eat something. It has been a torture to him, I guess. 
Someone’s pleasure means someone else’s suffering. Here you go again!
Since I won’t be able to take photos until either I get my camera fixed or get a new one, I will be going through my old photos and trying to write about them.
This is a lunar NY card I made with photos taken at the ‘Sex and Death’ exhibition at Sydney Botanic Garden and Auckland Winter Garden. I like making my own things whenever I can, especially cards, because they are fun to make and a great way to free your imagination because there are no restrictions or rules.
Out of so many weird looking plants, I was amazed by the number of species, the one that caught my eye the most is the ailien-grandpa looking flower(on the left). Its colourful and seductive look is mesmerising and how they eat insects to survive is quite mind-blowing.
The pitcher plant, so called Saracenia on the right somewhat reminds me of myself devouring rich chocolate mousse cake. But instead of cake, what I have for you today is these two mouth-watering dishes that can make a highlight on BBQs as finger food or entrée.
Spicy Eggplant Mini Cake
This dish was created on a whim wandering in and out of the kitchen on NY’s Eve, trying to make myself useful by offering a helping hand. People were busy trying to get nibbles ready before guests started to arrive, and when I saw a couple of eggplants and a tray of surimi(crab stick) screaming out for a rescue. The idea of seafood croquette came to my head and I started for it, then I didn’t think I could manage to roll it into a countless number of balls and coat them with bread crumbs, what’s worse, fry them. Duh! So the trick of baking came to my rescue and it worked brilliantly.
BBQ Mushroom with Capsicum Salsa
This fresh and healthy looking dish is one of my favourite tapas at a Spanish restaurant, which seems to be the best starter to work up an appetite. It is a nice mixture of fresh capsicum, tomato, a bit of red onion and garlic, with the generous amount of olive oil and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, although the restaurant version simply has capsicum.
I gave this an Asian flavour by putting chilli and coriander, and as it turned out spicier than I planned I put a dollop of mayonnaise on top to serve to smoothe out the chilli flavour, but it could be adapted to different tastes. You could leave out surimi and add minced beef with cheese topping or even beans or chickpeas with yoghurt on top for a vegetarian option.
One of my favourite ways to enjoy a Friday night is to drink wine with cheese and olives while listening to music. I’m starting to notice that the number of glasses of wine I get through in one night grows the way the number of candles on my birthday cake does.
Last Thursday I came across a cosy wine bar called ‘Taste on Sussex st‘ with elegant interior design. Live jazz playing, it was very charming and a feel-good place ‘Old meets New’ kind of design, which I like- high glass ceiling and glass walls giving the views of modern office towers, dark wood furniture, tiled carpet and French style wooden door separating the candle-lit sitting area from the bar. It is a shame that I don’t have any picture of either the place or the cheese platter I had that night. It was served, on a VERY thick heavy marble board, with finest French cheese, , unusual thin crisps, grapes and raisin-caraway rye bread, which teased my palate so much that I searched for the recipe to make some for myself.
While searching for some photos of the newly discovered wine bar, since I didn’t have any, I was surprised to learn that it was short-listed for 2008 Interior Design Awards. It seemed like a nice coincidence that I had left this post in draft unfinished and that led to finding unexpected information about the bar, which I was going to show off to the world at some point. Oh, well, before I even got the chance to do it, its unique design had been proven by experts whose opinions would possibly be more creditable than mine. It’s shame, though, that it didn’t win the first prize!
After seeing the winner of the award, I thought this place should have won. I’ll leave it for you to judge. You can compare it with the following place.
Winner of 2008 Hospitality Interior Design Awards (VIC)
Below is another place on the short list, Paddington Inn Hotel. There are more on the list, but none that I recognise, probably because they are not in Sydney.
Paddington Inn Hotel
I can’t end my post without mentioning a single word related to food. So here goes my story.
I ordered a case of wine from Hunter Valley a few days ago, and I’m getting impatient waiting for it to arrive at my door. I’ve become an expert at whipping up instant little snacks for spontaneous opening of wine or surprise visitors. Each time I get amazed by how many dishes you can create with very few ingredients, and it is almost like a magician’s conjuring trick. They often taste better than any other dishes that would take more than an hour to make.
Mushroom&Bacon Baguette w/ White Truffle cheese
The charm of the little angel food is, first, its artful look, so eye pleasing. Another charm is that you can drag your eating time to as long as you have a drink in your hand and don’t have to feel guilty to have dinner or naughty dessert later on. *my secret to the 6 hour non-stop eating*
Call me greedy, pig or whatever you would please. I don’t feel ashamed to claim that I love eating and food is my reason for living, whereas others eat to survive. My hope is to eat as many varieties of food as possible before my taste buds finally give way.
Looking at the photo makes me feel like whipping up some olive tapenade with anchovies I bought yesterday. Whoa, lucky I’ve got some lovely brie too. Hope you have a good weekend and eat yummy food.
I’m going to the Festival of Winds at Bondi this Sunday. I can feel summer poking its head around the corner by the announcement of the event.
This post might have sounded odd to some people who know me. *:-P* I was surprised to find this post sitting in drafts myself.
One of the benefits of living down under is that you get to celebrate Christmas twice a year. It’s been really cold lately- not cold cold, but for Aussie spoilt with sunshine and warmth it’s been unbearably wet and chilly.
Christmas seemed to have arrived very early this year in many ways.
I got my first Xmas present from my friend, Alice, who knows my fashion taste better than myself. She’s so good at picking the right present for people. I’m still wearing the slippers she got me for my birthday 2 years ago. I called them bumper cars. They are always parked by the bed and I drive around the house in them.
Thanks again, Alice, for the lovely fancy shoes. I’ve been enjoying wearing them.
I also got a job that I had tried to get for a long time, so my spirits have been very high this winter.
To keep the Xmas spirit going, I called for an instant midwinter Christmas party with some friends and students of mine to give them a cultural experience about Christmas in July – more honestly as an excuse for more food and booze :-O.
Capsicum Cashew Pesto, Olive Cashew Tapenade and Salsa Vede
I was going to get a Xmas tree and tinsels, but shops didn’t have them on sale yet, not til December. But I still made an effort to give a bit of a Christmas feel, at least a party feel, to my place for the guests by hanging around balloons and party.
Initially, I wasn’t going to do much cooking up since people were bringing some food, then I thought, ‘The party wouldn’t be the same without one big dish for people to share like big roasted turkey.’ So I went down to the fish market – god, I love living so close to all that fresh seafood! – and got a HUGE salmon, about 3kg. The weight of the fish in my hand made me so excited and, at the same time, worried about cooking it right so that it wouldn’t all go to waste.
Realising the fish was too big to fit in my oven, I chopped off around the head and kept it for dinner later. Cooking whole big salmon turned out to be less hassle than I imagined. All you need is a bunch of fresh dill and a whole packet of coarse sea salt. Now with the big Christmas feed in the oven, it is time to make the special green sauce to go with it - Salsa Verde.
I combined two recipes found on the net and made my own green salsa. To make 2 cups of salsa verde
A whole bunch of parsley, mint and basil – finely chopped – I didn’t use a food processor to make it look more rustic
A whole small jar of capers in white wine vinegar, two garlic cloves and 6 anchovies – I processed these for smoother texture to contrast with herbs.
2 Tbs Dijon mustard
2 Tbs red wine vinegar
1 Tbs lemon jice
3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
I had a lot of comments on this sauce from my guests. They got absolutely blown away by it and started floating around the house with balloons.
The whole fish business was the highlight of the evening, leaving so little praise for my unfortunate Christmas cake yet to be served.
Christmas cake is meant to be made long before the special day so that the fruit flavor can be brought out. Since it wasn’t going to be a traditional cake, I created my own recipe, less fruity and nuttier – modern Christmas cake, that is, in an effort to watch out my bulging waistline. *:-P*
My students brought some desserts as well, and the Thai coconut banana was really delicious, yet not as good as my cake 
Thank you to all the guests who came around that night despite the rain. I really appreciate your effort you had to make to drag your cold and wet body outside, and all the lovely food you brought. I hope you all had lots of laughter and enjoyed the strange experience of having a Christmas party in the middle of winter with bunch of strangers.
Merry Christmas, everyone, once again.
Let’s hope for the best Christmas to come this year.
Friday is normally the time of the week I fire up my creativity and make special snacks and a cheese plate, and drink wine and watch movies. Hmm…what have we got in the fridge today? Black olives and an eggplant – eggplants are expensive, aren’t they? I got mine for $3.80 or something. Or is it normal? They are *abundant in Korea, they are different in shape though, narrow and straight.
*abundant /어번’던트/ 풍부한, 많은 = plentiful, staple
Now I will make a black olive spread, so called *Tapenade. It needs *kalamata olives, but Spanish black olives will do just fine, I think? It’s luck that I *marinated them long before when I first bought them just in case.
*marinate/마’러네이트/(양념)에 절이다 ex) marinated fish, beef, chicken… (n) marinade
What am I going to do with the eggplant? It’s nice roasted or grilled, isn’t it? The idea of making hummus just came across my mind. Problem! The main *ingredient is missing, chickpeas. But, guess what? I’ve got some kidney beans. To me peas and beans are from the same family, so there goes my *experiment, tee hee.^^*
*ingredient /인그리’디언트/ 재료
*experiment /익스페’러먼트/실험(하다)
I’m REALLY excited cooking tonight. It’s the first time using my new magical toy. The Wizz stick! How long have I waited for this moment to say goodbye to a whisk and *sore arm!
*sore 아픈,쑤시고 쓰라린,염증이 있는 ex) I’ve got a sore throat. I got sore feet from walking all day.
Chop, chop… pop in my magic toy everything, eggplant&garlic both roasted, olive oil, lemon juice, parsley…and the beans (I wish the fancy toy would have the power of turning them into chickpeas. ^^) Here comes.. ZZZZZzzzzzz….!!! #$%&@ WOW! It’s AMAZING! It’s really magical! I lost my words…
I will be talking more about the Wizz later, and now I better get back to my cooking. Where was I? Yeah, let’s add some spices, paprika and cumin, salt and pepper. Done!
Now, the olive spread is a piece of cake with my Wizz. Since Spanish black olives *tend to have more *subtle flavour than kalamata, I will add a little amount of red wine, *balsamic vinegar and lemon juice. Zzzzzz… done again.
*tend to ~하는 경향이 있다, ~하는 편이다
*subtle /써’틀/ 미묘한, 미세한 ex) a subtle joke, lie, smile…
Everything seems to be ready. My fresh home made Turkish flat bread is cooling down on the wire rack. Looks so good. I can’t wait to try it.
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