Green Curry Fish and Prawn with Coconut Rice

During the last half hour I spent in the office today it looked very bleak outside, it was rainy and I really was not looking forward to running out to the car and getting wet, it must have dampened my spirits as I rang Jo and asked her to stop by on her way home so I could take her out for dinner.

Stopping somewhere in Northbridge on our way home for dinner has become a fairly regular event, often it will be my favourite Vietnamese Vinh Hong, not only because I love the food, but also because of Jo’s love for the wine bar next door, it is a nice way to end the day, especially  after being busy at work.

Well that was the plan anyway, however by the time I left the office it had stopped raining, and Jo was still stuck on the freeway, so I told her to continue on home and I’d cook for her after all, I had started driving myself by this time and was formulating an idea in my head to cook a green curry chicken.  That was until I turned the next corner and the traffic was at a stands still, so after a quick U turn, I was heading back from whence I began and looking for a quicker route home, that route took me through North Perth, straight past our local fish monger, an ordinary chicken curry had now been elevated to a fish and prawn curry.

After a quick stroll through Coles, I was headed home with my snapper and king prawns, a yellow capsicum, a handful of green beans, a bunch of chives and a red chilli, with this and a few items from the pantry dinner was on its way!

I make my own green curry paste from green chillies, lots of coriander, shrimp paste, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, shallots, galangal, ginger, garlic, Kaffir lime leaves and lemon grass, it is absolutely the best, when I make it I make enough so as to make a couple of curries and then to fill an ice cube tray for later use, I used 3 cubes tonight from my last batch. 

I cooked the rice in coconut milk using the absorption method that takes 30 minutes to cook, having prepared the curry ingredients in the first 10 minutes of that time, left me 20 minutes to cook the curry, such an easy dinner to make and oh so YUM YUM to eat, really did leave me wanting more, but that would leave Jo without lunch tomorrow and we cannot have that now can we!

Mamma Agata – Simple and Genuine

We are planning a trip to Italy in a year’s time, which is keeping Jo very busy as she surfs the net looking for as much information as she can find about the place, its culture and most importantly its food.  Whilst doing this she came across a site for a cooking school on the Amalfi Coast, which is one of the areas I have indicated I very much want to see and experience.  The cooking school, known as Mamma Agata’s is perched high up on the side of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, it would be an experience just to visit the property it looks so beautiful.  She keeps nagging me, can we go, have you had look, nag nag nag, so eventually I went and had look at the site and some of the food they prepare there, and I have to agree with Jo it does look fantastic. 

Whilst looking around on the site I found they had released the third edition of a cook book titled “Mamma Agata – Simple and Genuine” and it was available from their web site.  I could not resist so ordered one there and then, it arrived a few days later personally autographed by Mamma and the family with the words “Cucinare con amore in Jack's cucina”, which translates to “Cook with love in Jack’s kitchen!”

I sat down and had a look through the recipes one night last week, then handed the book to Jo and had her pick out 3 recipes to make up a 3 course meal, as I handed her the book I told her I think you really only need to pick the main because I know what you will want for the other two courses, a little while later she gave me the three courses, the only surprise being her main course, Stuffed Squid, the entrée  and dessert as I had predicted were to be Sautéed Mussels and Clams and an Apple Tart, know her too well!

Sautéed Mussels and Clams

A very simple entrée, but oh so satisfying, mussels and clams sautéed in garlic and olive oil finished with a squeeze of lemon, very more-ish, served up with crusty garlic ciabbata YUM YUM

Stuffed Squid

Another very simple to prepare dish, packed full of flavour, finished in a tomato puree cooked up with the left over stuffing, beautiful fresh flavours, accompanied by a Mediterranean styled salad, so glad I brought too many squid, took the left over’s for lunch on Monday and had all the office looking on in envy as I devoured my lunch!

Mama Agata’s Apple Tart

If I never made this tart again, I can promise you I will certainly be using the pastry recipe again, unbelievably good!  But then so was the filling, I was feeling a little guilty putting this together, felt like I was cheating on my Mother and Grandma, as I have made their apple pie recipe so many times and I love it, always will, but I am going to have to find room for this recipe too, it is so amazing.

So we have celebrated a year to go until our holiday in true Italian style, with good food, really good food, made with love for the one I love, now there is just 364 days to go, can’t wait!

As you can see by the photo's Jo did a great job setting the scene for our evening, she also picked out an amazing bottle of wine for us to enjoy with our meal, an Autumn Red from one of our favourite Swan Valley wineries Windy Creek, a top drop from a top little winery!

Check out Mamma Agata's Cooking School web pages

Son In-Law Eggs and the best Salmon EVER!

Well it was nice to get back in the kitchen today and do some cooking, though I am suffering a little now with a sharp pain in my back!  But you get that so I won't sook too much.  I have most of the afternoon preparing food for during the week, a beautiful lamb curry I cooked from scratch, as I could not be bothered looking for a recipe and it has tuned out just as I had hoped, we'll enjoy that come Monday night.  I've also made a zucchini slice, which will be for lunches and maybe the odd breakfast too, I left it in the oven a few minutes too long and the onions seem to have started to caramelise, it smells awesome and can't wait to try that out too.

It is funny how when you start to tire, little errors start creeping into the kitchen, the slice was the first of it, I had decided earlier in the day to prepared a three course dinner for Jo tonight, it was a sort of a challenge as we are in a healthy eating mode attempting to shed a few pounds.

Jo is trying to keep her calorie intake below 1200 a day and I knew she was sitting at about 440 after her lunch, so the three courses needed to be less than 760, though I was told it had best be a little less than that.  I am happy to say I managed to pull it off, and whilst I am feeling like a stuffed pig right now, at least I met the target.

And the three courses where awesome, we started the meal with Son In Law eggs, a Thai dish, one we tried in Melbourne a few months back at Ginger Boy, a very trendy alleyway bar style restaurant that serves the best food.  I had a small disappointment in that I cooked the eggs a wee bit too long, I wanted soft gooey yolks, not soft boiled, just gooey, I didn't get them, but they tasted fantastic anyway, Jo insisted she was only having one and i think she regretted it in the end as they were good, instructions have been left to do them again.   I have entered the recipe for these into a site called SparkRecipes click the link and have a crack at them, well worth the effort.

For main course I prepared some Tasmanian Salmon from a recipe from the same site, and the comments the dish had received had me wanting to try it instantly, having made it and enjoyed it, all the while listening to Jo almost reach boiling point with Ohh's and Ahh's, I have to agree it was so YUM YUM YUM, so much so i wished I had brought more salmon so we could do it a gain tomorrow, really is that good.  I made up a fried rice to go with this, and whilst I thought I might try plain steam rice next time, Jo was of the opinion that the rice I prepared was the perfect accompaniment.

We finished the meal with some low cal Yoplait yoghurt and Raspberries, very refreshing and yummy too!

Just made it!

Jack's Seafood Spaghetti with Asparagus

Ingredients:
2 tbl spn olive oil, I used chilli infused EVOO YUM YUM
1 onion, diced
small red capsicum, diced
3 - 4 anchovy fillets
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 bunch asparagus, chopped
3/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 fillet fish, diced
200g prawn flesh
100g scallops
250g spaghetti
salt and pepper

Method:

Bring a pot of salted water to the boil, once boiling add the pasta and cook as per packet directions  

Heat oil in heavy based pan on low to medium heat, once oil is hot add onions, capsicum and anchovies, sauté slowly for 8 minutes, adding garlic half way through

Add asparagus, cook for a couple of minutes, increasing heat to medium-hot

Then add wine and cook off until evaporated by about half

Add the fish and parsley, stir through and cook for about two minutes, season with pepper, test for saltiness, add some if required 

Add the prawn flesh, stir through cooking for a minute 

Add the scallops, stir through the sauce for about thirty seconds

Cover and turn the heat off, leave sitting until pasta is ready there will be enough heat in the pan to cook the scallops perfectly

Once pasta is cooked add to the pan

Combine with the sauce, put the lid back on whilst you cut some crusty bread and open a bottle of wine

Bon appetto

Wanted something quick and tasty for dinner tonight, this pasta dish filled the bill nicely, it took about 40 minutes from start to finish and it was scrumptious, I had to call into the veggie shop to pick up some fresh parsley and spotted the asparagus as I was at the check out, so glad I picked some up it went fantastic with the seafood pasta.

I loved the colours of this dish through the cooking process, hence the numerous photo's!!  Now whilst I am talking about photo's, if you click on a photo, it should open up to full size and you can easily scroll through all photo's posted, have noticed this works on most blog sites I visit.

Thai Red Curry Shark with awesome rice

If you came over to visit me right now, you would swear as you stepped over the front door step that you had stepped from Australia into Thailand, such are the aromas of the Murphy household tonight and if you like Thai food like I do, you’d think man that smells so good!

Now if you were an avid reader of my blog (God help you), you would know that I have blogged similar meals to tonight’s meal here in the past, but I am blogging this meal anyway as it is one I am very happy with, and there is enough difference and enough new information to warrant it.   That is partly due to a couple of new ingredients, well new brands of ingredients better put, that I have tried for the first time and also due to a new method I have used to cook the rice, both parts have made tonight’s meal one to remember.

I will start the same way as I did in the kitchen, with the rice.  I cook rice using the absorption method as I find it is not only the easiest but proves every time to produce the best results, it also makes it easy to time the cooking of the meal, as I practically do it in two parts, where I cook the rice for 15 minutes, then let it rest untouched for 15 minutes.  Tonight however I did vary the method by first quickly stir frying a teaspoon of grated ginger, a crushed clove of garlic and a teaspoon of finely chopped coriander root in a little oil heated in my wok.  Once the ingredients were nice and fragrant I added a cup of rice and mixed it through stirring continuously for about a minute, the now fragrant rice grains were transferred to a large pot to which I added 1¾ cups of chicken stock.  You then put the lid on the pot and onto a high heat until the liquid come to the boil, then turn the fire down as low as it will go and leave it for 15 timed minutes, as soon as the alarm goes off remove the pot from the heat, reset the timer for another 15 minutes and you get perfect rice, every time.  I changed that last bit tonight however, as I had prepared 2 tablespoons of coriander leaves, 2 tablespoons of mint, a cup of finely chopped bean shoots and a small finely diced carrot which I added to the rice and then mixed in quickly with a fork, then replaced the lid to let it stand for the remaining time.  It was amazing rice, I could have sat down and just ate that it was that good.

Once the rice was off the heat I got to work on cooking the fish which I had coated with a tablespoon of rice flour to which I had added a ¼ teaspoon each of ground cumin, ground coriander, ground cardamom, black pepper and salt, I then stir fried the fish in hot oil for a couple of minutes and then set aside on paper towel to drain any excess oil off.  I added a little more oil to the wok and once it was hot stirred in a large tablespoon of red curry paste, the first of the new ingredient brands I was trying out, the brand is Hogan’s Chilli Sauces, it is a WA product, handmade and has no artificial colouring, flavours or preservatives.  Until tonight I had always used and sworn by Valcom curry pastes, I don’t know if I could go back to that product after using Hogan’s paste.  I cooked the paste for a few minutes, it became very fragrant and sort of starts to separate a little, I then added the coconut cream, tonight I am using Ayam Brand Premium Coconut Cream and again I don’t think I could use anything else in future, it made the most beautiful sauce, I added the cream off the top of the can a little at a time to the chilli paste until I had it all combined before adding the juice from the bottom of the can and letting it cook for a couple minutes.  When the timer got down to two minutes to go, I added the fish back in and allowed it to heat over a low flame.

Wow, this has turned out to be a long blog, I think it has taken longer to write this than it did to cook the entire meal!!!  But now it is written I am happy, cos this is one meal I definitely want to cook again!

Sicilian styled Red Throat Emperor

I love it when I go looking for a recipe and I come across one that has Neil Perry's name on it, as it usually means a relatively easy night in the kitchen and a a lot of Oh WOW's at the table, tonight's meal was no exception!.

Absolutely fantastic combination of flavours and oh so easy to put together, exactly what I have come to expect from the masters insight's, though I must admit I was a little concerned as to if it might please Jo Girl, but alas I need of of worried.

I convinced myself I was going to follow this recipe to a tee, exact ingredients and methods, then I walked into the fish mongers and found the exact fish fillets the recipe called for.  Unfortunately, however, right beside them were the most succulent looking Red Throat Emperor fillets, as white as white can be and thick and juicy looking, my mouth began to water as memories of catching this species at Point Sampson came flooding back.

I ordered a half kilo and I will admit I have had no regrets, nil at all, they were brilliant white steaks, and smelled just like the ocean they came from, having made a slight change to the main ingredient, I also decide to douse the fillets in a little seasoned rice flour.  When it came to cook I took a look at Neil's method and it sort of made sense for cooking whiting fillets, but when considering the beaut Red Throat Emperor fillets I had to cook, I decided to get started on the salsa first and the fish halfway through, it all came together nicely and it was not long after it hit the table the noise started!!
I love Neil Perry recipe's they are awesome, click this link and try it bet you cook it again and again!!

Creamy garlic prawns with saffron rice

Went out to buy some seafood today, had in mind to pick up some blue swimmer crabs, a crayfish and some fish fillets, I came home with some King Prawns and some beaut Tasmanian Salmon fillets.  Unfortunately I was unable to find crabs anywhere and fresh (live) crays weighed in at Seventy bucks a kilo, I only needed one, but without the crabs I could not do the dish I wanted so I had to compromise.  I had a fair idea what I’d do with the salmon but none at all for the prawns, even after looking in my usual places, so I ended up turning to some forum or other and took a punt on a creamy garlic prawn recipe.  Very glad I did too, it was an absolute winner and teamed up with the saffron rice I made to go with it, made it very very yummy!

The salmon I cooked following a Manu Feidel recipe have done a bit of his stuff of late and the more I do the more I am enjoying doing them, a lot of his recipes have lots of elements to them, which makes them interesting to cook and they taste fantastic.  Tonight’s main course consisted of Crispy Skinned Tasmanian Salmon with a Tarragon Cream Sauce, Crispy Potato, Beans and a yummy baked Zucchini Flan, the flan was outstanding, as was the sauce and the crispy skinned salmon, the only disappointment for me was the plating and photographing of the main course, not sure if that was because I was hungry, therefore rushing or maybe I had too much wine with the entrée!

Seafood delight

On the menu tonight we had Oysters Kilpatrick and Estuary Cod Fillets with a Baked Beetroot, Asparagus and Feta salad.

It has been a bit hard this week getting time to cook let alone blog having been travelling around various parts of the state for work and with so much to do, so it was great to have the time to cook tonight.
As luck would have it, returning from our last destination saw me in the vicinity of Drovers in Joondalup, where I was able to pick up some beautiful fish and a tray of fresh Smoky Bay Oysters.

Jo set the table beautifully and I opened a bottle of Windy Creek Chardonnay which I was given on one of my recent visits to the winery, as a rule we don’t often drink white wine, that may have to change however as this wine was so good, as was the Windy Creek Chenin Blanc we enjoyed as I prepared he meal.

I seemed to take a bit of time to get this meal together, even though it was a reasonably easy meal to prepare, so I made an appetiser of Costello Blue and Olives to tie Jo Girl over whilst she waited patiently.

The oysters were so very easy to prepare, six drops of tobacco sauce added couple of tablespoons of Worchester sauce, a teaspoonful of which was spooned over each oyster, then 3 three rashers of bacon finely diced and cooked in a hot pan for a few minutes, I then added a quarter cup of Panko breadcrumbs, the bacon mix was then spooned over the oysters, pop them under the grill for 4 and a half minutes and they are done.

I was busy drooling over and taking photos of the table setting whilst they were cooking and they were left there a little too long so they caught on top, almost ruined them, thankfully I got them before it they were past saving and they tasted great, nice and crunchy topping with a slightly spicy finish to the sauce, perfect for me!

Cooking the fish was easy too, pan fried for two minutes either side in a hot non stick pan with a knob of butter, some dill, a tablespoon of capers and a clove of garlic, cook these ingredients for a minute or so to infused the flavours before adding the fish, once both sides of the fish are done, transfer to a baking tray and into a preheated oven to 180C for 8 minutes.

When I was at the fruit and veg at Drovers, I found a bunch of baby beetroot, after picking a bunch a looked around to see what else might go with them, settled on some asparagus, whilst I had no idea what I was going to do with these ingredients I was sure I could come up with something and after a little research I took inspiration from a couple of ideas and settled on a baked beetroot and asparagus salad with feta and Boccioni and a Dijon mustard sauce, these went so well together and complimented the beautiful fish nicely.