Sunday, May 2, 2010

Tuna beans spanish onion n sultanas on turkish toast

As I am writing to this, I am listening to Michael Nyman, "The heart ask for pleasure first". How apt. It has been such a pleasurable sunny cool Sunday afternoon, and I just had a lovely turkish toast with soothing music, and now sipping my cup of hot green tea.

This morning as I woke up and lazying in bed, I thought we will have tuna beans for lunch, but what will complement it well? After trying a bunch of different ingredients on my imaginary palate, I finally decided on this mix:

Turkish bread
500g Sole Marie tuna and beans
1 finely chopped spanish red onion
2 cloves of finely chopped garlic
Handful of of sultanas
5-6 basil leaves, chopped
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt n pepper

To me, turkish bread is absolutely fabulous for toasts with olive oil. Its crunchy soft and light.

On a small non-stick pan, lightly caramelise the onions with sultanas for about a minute with a dash of olive oil, a crack of salt and a touch of balsamic vinegar. Dont overcook. We want the onion to remain crunchy(I dont like raw onions but if you like them raw, go for it). Put aside.
Drain the oil off the can of tuna and beans.
On a bowl, toss the tuna, beans and chopped basil with olive oil ( I much prefer olive oil. It is fresher and healthier than the oil that comes with the tuna).
Half the turkish bread
"Butter" the halved turkish bread with chopped garlic
Grill the bread on a preheated toasted oven, just enough to warm the bread and release the flavour from the garlic.
When done, drizzle olive oil onto turkish bread. Then add the tuna mix, followed by the sauteed onions.
Crackle some pepper.

The crunchy onions and sweetness of the sultanas adds texture and taste to the tuna. And the fresh basil adds a nice refreshing "zing". I think parsley would have complemented these ingredients better , but I didnt have parsley at home today.

Bon Appetit!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Snack, dinner

Some of the colourful meals we made last week.
Garlic bruschetta with fresh tomato and basil in olive oil.
Vietnamese "bun" with spanish chorizo









Bon Appetit!

Stewed pork ribs in chicken and dried honey dates soup

Simple and comforting home cooked meal.

I dont know why, but I have been feeling so dehydrated these days. I havent missed soups lately until now. So I bought 5 pieces of drumsticks to make clear soup, with the packet of dried yellow dates (I think its called "mut cho" in cantonese)I have in the pantry.

Ingredients
Chicken drumsticks
1 stalk of fennel
1 carrot
A dozen of golden/honey dates ("mut cho" in cantonese)
A pinch of salt

We use a le creuset cast iron pot (it seals all the flavours well).

Place chicken into the pot with cold water, enough to cover the chicken.
Turn heat on high.
When it starts to boil, remove the layer of white/grayish foam that emerged. This takes away the impurities of the meat which floats to the surface when boiling.
Put the rest of the ingredients into the boiling water.
Turn heat to lowest heat. Boil the chicken soup for 2 1/2 hours.

The finished clear soup was nice and sweet. The chicken was lovely, falling off its bones. We had it with soy sauce and fresh chilly, accompanied with plain steam rice, and fried choy sum with eshallots and garlic and a dash of oyster sauce.

With the leftover clear soup, with its sweetish flavour, we thought it would make a nice sort of Thai/Vietnamese noodle soup.

I added about:
5 star anise,
another fennel stalk,
1 chopped onion
a chopped tomato
a teaspoonsful of corn starch powder
and boiled the soup for about 45 minutes.

The corn starch powder makes the soup slightly thicker so that it will bind better onto my taiwanese noodles. The fennel stalk gives it a nice licorish taste which blends well with the star anise.

While the soup was simmering, I boiled some taiwanese noodle and blanched some lettuce and placed them onto a bowl. To keep the noodle separated I tossed it with a dash of sesame oil and tiny weeny bit of oyster sauce for flavouring. When the soup was ready, and the ingredients drained, I then poured it onto the bowl of noodles. I hesitated whether to put in some fesh basil leaves, but opted to leave it out, so that I can enjoy the pure simple sweet taste of the soup. As this was meant to be a fast food nite, we opened up a can of chinese stew pork ribs (Gulong brand), heat it up in the pot, and put the ribs on top of the noodles (minus the juice that comes with it in the can, as I didnt want it to change the flavour of the soup) I must say I enjoyed the soup very much. The soup was clear but tasty with the natural sweetness of all the fresh veg and dates.

The best way to describe it is to imagine a fusion between a taiwanese brisket soup noodle and a indochine beef soup noodle, just minus the beef :-)

Bon Appetit!