Sunday, September 10, 2006

Food food food!

I've been neglecting the culinary side of me lately. So on Saturday (after my near death experiece which I will not discuss about because I worry for the safety of my life), I went to Flemington Paddy's Markets with my parents. Its been awhile since we've been because we keep stocking up and we never finish the food on time. Since it was pouring rain, we were hoping that it would be less crowded. Well we were wrong. Anyway, we did get quite a few good buys:


Mini pineapples - 3 for $2

These pineapples were so cute! They're no bigger than those novelty footballs/stressball things they sell for charity. And its soooooooo sweet! And cute! Did I mention they were cute?

Yellow capsicums - $2/kg

Chinese Radish - $1 a bunch

For some reason, my dad was really happy to see these split chinese radishes. He reckons they taste better than the normal ones. We have yet to cook them so I don't know if its true or not. Only taste will tell......

Pearl Mushrooms and abalone mushrooms - $6 for 2 packs

Fresh babycorn
The marked price is $5 a box, each box comes with 16 little trays. I thought it was a great deal, but what I think and what my mum think is quite different. Even at $5, she likes to bargain (Now you know where I get it from). She offered the guy $4 for the box, the gave a bark of laughter into her face, waved her away, turned his back and grabbed a box lying at the back of his stand. He lifted the lid and showed us that there was 1 1/2 trays missing from the box, threw it ontop of another box and said $5. I thought he said he'll sell the incomplete box to us for $4, but he was offering us the incomplete box and ANOTHER full box for $5! Thats $2.50 a box with 16 little trays! Talk about a bargain! And I thought the guy was going to tell us off for offering him $4. I guess it never hurts to ask hey?

I picked up a few other ingredients along the way for a bit of a cookoff by myself:

Chicken Sausage rolls

MmmMmm more innards....

MMmmmMmm They were YUM!!! The sausages were just cooked to perfection, still nice and juicy and the pastry was soft and flakey. Served with a bit of tomato/chilli chutney it'll be perfect! If I wasn't so hungry, I probably would've whipped up a batch. Maybe next time. Until then, good old ketchup will do.


Mix mushroom and salami pasta

Tom Yum Noodle Soup

This was my first attempt at Tom Yum Goong and I've bastardised it already. I grabbed a nice bunch of Kaffir lime leaves whilst I was at the markets and thought I should put it too good use since its $6/100g ($60/kg!!!!!!!!!!!!) We had alot of leftover mussels so I thought I'd throw that in. And since we have so much baby corn, I thought I'd throw some in to. But I think the one thing that everyone is screaming about is "OMG!! YOU CAN'T PUT TOMATO IN A TOM YUM GOONG!!! BLASPHEMY!!!". Well, I did. And some restaurants serve them that way as well. But next time I think I'll leave them out, and the corn, and the mussels and produce a pure Tom Yum Goong. It turned out quite well even though I was missing 1 key ingredient and had to substitute, and I also ran outta lime. I need alot more lime. I loveeeeeee my Tom Yum Goong soooo sour your saliva glands go into overtime! MmmMmm YUM!!

I've also been categorising all the recipes I've collected over time, and found one that Moishii sent me on 23rd November 2004 (Yes I've kept the email!) on how to make dolmades (Vine leaves). Moishii's mum makes THE BEST VINE LEAVE EVER! And so I had asked for the recipe and he emailed it to me. So I went out and got myself a pack of vine leaves which had been preserved since I couldn't find any fresh ones. Obviously my first question was how do I treat the preserved ones compared to the fresh ones. I gave Moishii a call who managed to get him mummy on the other end. Then there was this whole big translation session. Everything was going well until I said ".....and then I'll fry it all up....."

Moishii: "Fry what?? What are you frying?? Theres no frying!!"
Oishii: "Your recipe said to fry up the onions and the garlic......."
M: "Theres no garlic!!!"
O: "YOUR EMAIL SAYS GARLIC!!!"
M: "THERES NO GARLIC!!! Read me the recipe!"
O: "500g of cooked rice......holy crap thats 1/2kg of cooked rice!!"
M:" WHY ARE YOU USING COOKED RICE!!! YOU DON'T USE COOKED RICE!!!!!!"
O: "YOUR RECIPE SAYS TO USE COOKED RICE!!! It also says parsley....."
M: "THERE'S NO PARSLEY!!! DON'T USE PARSLEY!!!"

And this went on and on with all the ingredients he listed. I finally got an updated ingredients list from his mummy. He basically gave me a crap recipe which was completely fake! Half of the ingredients he sent me I don't need! Most of the instructions it gives are completely wrong! Who the hell gives me a fake recipe!! And even when he did give me his mum's recipe, I suspected there was something wrong with it. Either he's a bad translater (Which is entirely possible) or his mum was withholding a key ingredient, just like in Everybody loves Raymond. But I come from a long generation of cooks, and I can wing it if I need to.

I call this "Dolmades - Moishii's Mum's Style, as interpreted by SoRMuiJAi". So here goes:

The filling - This is what caused the whole fuss!

Preparing for the rolling

Looking good so far.....

My first completed vine leaf!

One down.....

Only 12754 more to go......


Moishii neglected to give me a few vital points, such as how long to cook them for!!!!!! Anyway, I winged it, and it tasted good!!! It's been 24hours, and there is no sign of food poisoning! The rice was a bit too cooked (No thanks to some people), and its not quite tomatoey enough. The reason Moishii's Mum makes the best Dolmades ever, is because she makes it really tomatoey, unlike all the others out there. I know where I went wrong, and I am definately going to make another batch soon. I've passed a box on to Moishii, so he can pass it on to his Mummy. Lets see what she thinks hey? I think its a good effort for a first attempt! Hmmmm I'm so having a Turkish cookout soon! I'm going to make some Kofte!!

2 comments:

petals said...

good to see that you are alive and cooking!
=P

SoRMuiJAi said...

Its always good to handle some sharp utensils like a butchers knife on the weekend. Its good training.