Showing posts with label seafood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seafood. Show all posts

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce

Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce

Sometimes, you have multiple things to celebrate in a short space of time. Like having an award winning Chocolate Beer Jam. Or having it confirm that your recipe will be included in a cookbook. Or having a birthday. And all of those things individually might require a toast…but together, they definitely do. And sometimes, you somehow are left with a half bottle of bubbles when such an occasion arises. I am a little funny about drinking bubbles after the day I open them. Even though we have an incredible re-corking stopper, it’s just something I don’t enjoy as much after the fact. And so I was left with a little champagne (in reality, sparkling wine, but I’m gonna be fancy and call it champagne) that I couldn’t bear to waste. Well, cooking with it seems like the best use!

I’d seen (and eaten) quite a few champagne cupcakes in the last few months. Seems like quite the trend in Perth at the moment! But I wanted dinner, not cupcakes!

My next thought went to my gin and crab pasta, and then to the good deal of seafood pastas with vodka sauces over the years and thought that a seafood pasta sauce was definitely the go. But, I wanted the flavour of the champagne to shine through. It’s not as strong a flavour as the gin, so I didn’t want a thick creamy sauce, so I went with a buttery base. I added some delicious Shark Bay Prawns, and some finely sliced yellow squash for a mellow, summery addition. All complimentary, but subtle flavours. And here’s the kicker. Vanilla. Adding a vanilla bean to the reducing champagne takes this from tasty to next level delicious. It adds a sweetness that you can’t quite put your finger on, but you’d immediately notice it’s absence. Trust me on this. Then you’ll probably want to open another bottle of bubbles to drink with the dish. And you might end up with a little leftover…

This is a very simple dish with very few ingredients, so it pays for them to be good quality. I recommend using fresh spaghetti if you can, and although my champagne was day old, it was still good champagne. You can use anything you would ordinarily drink. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but given the scope of sweetness and dryness you get in sparklings, make it something you enjoy drinking.

Oh, and the last note I will add is that this dish comes together really quickly once you start cooking. I’d say it’s maybe a 15 minute meal. So prep all your ingredients first, get your pasta water boiling (especially if you have dried pasta) and then begin cooking. I used salted butter as that’s what I had, so I needed less salt than you will if you use unsalted.

Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce


Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce 

1 ½ cups champagne (sparkling wine)
2 shallots, finely diced
3 small cloves garlic, minced
1 vanilla bean
125g butter, cubed.
Salt and pepper
500g fresh pasta
250g peeled prawns
4 yellow squash, very finely sliced
Chopped parsley to serve
Red chilli flakes (optional)
More champagne to drink with it!

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil.

In a large sautee pan, pour in the champagne, shallots and garlic and a little pepper. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the pan, then throw the pod in too. Bring to the boil over a medium heat and keep it simmering until it’s reduced by half. Add the butter, a few cubes at a time, and whisk well after each addition to blend into the sauce. Stir well for a further 1-2 minutes to thicken the sauce, then discard the vanilla pod and add the squash slices and prawns. Check for seasoning.

Put the fresh pasta into the boiling water.

Stir the prawns and squash into the sauce well, coating in the sauce and allowing to cook through. 2-3 minutes. At this point, your pasta should also be cooked, using tongs, pull the spaghetti into the sauce, allowing some (not too much) cooking water to come with it. Stir well to coat all the noodles in the sauce and blend the cooking liquid in.

Serve with some chopped parsley and some chilli flakes, if you’d like


Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza


Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza


Lance and I both got hit by the flu that was going around. It knocked us around quite a bit and in an attempt to kick it, I started amping up the health-promoting ingredients in all of our dishes. This on top of the lemon, honey and ginger teas we were drinking like they were going out of fashion. One Sunday we were both feeling sorry for ourselves, the sun was shining and I was a bit over the soups. So I made these cold-kicking cream cheese pizzas – full of garlic, ginger, chilli, fresh herbs and lemon and honey squeezed over the top. We sat out in the sun to get some vitamin D and shake off some of the germs and cobwebs from being in bed for a week. 

It felt a lot like the sitting at the pub and having a gourmet pizza that we were missing out on, and it perked us up enough to get back to work the next day.


You don’t need to be sick to enjoy these. But they’re easy enough to cook when you are. I think this is going to make a few appearances over Spring and Summer. Possibly with real, homemade pizza bases!



Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza
Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza



Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza


100g peeled raw prawns
4 lebanese loaves
250g Philadelphia cream cheese
2 bunches coriander
1 bunch parsley
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tsp red chilli, minced
1 tsp grated ginger
¼ tsp salt
Handful bean sprouts
1 tbsp capers
Handful rocket
Lemon wedges for serving



Preheat the oven to 170C


Throw your cream cheese, coriander, parsley, garlic cloves, chilli, salt and ginger in a food processor. Pulse until it’s all chopped up and evenly combined.


Spread over the Lebanese loaves, then distribute the prawns, capers and bean sprouts. Pop in the oven and cook for 20 minutes until the prawns are pink and the cheese is getting golden at the edges.


Serve with a handful of rocket on top, then drizzle over some honey and add lemon wedges.
Even better with a beer or crisp white wine


Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza
Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza
Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza
Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon





Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
 
Lance often mocks me the various random frozen things in ziplock bags I have in the freezer. He quizzed me the other day on whether I knew what was actually in them and he pointed out a bag of crab flesh from a summer crabbing trip. Given it’s recommended to be frozen 3-6 months, we decided it needed to be eaten. I enjoyed the pomegranate gin sabayon so much, I decided I’d do something similar. But I was in a tequila-y kinda mood.

This post is really two distinct recipes. Crab with a smokey tequila sabayon and a beetroot and lentil patty. Both of these recipes are fully standalone dishes. They taste amazing by themselves. I make a variation of this patty for burgers quite often (so good with sweet potato chips!). And the crab with a toasted sabayon in smaller portions on top of a fancy cracker/toast makes the most elegant canapĂ©. But the flavours go together really well and I’ve only photographed it together, so I’ll serve it up here in the one post! But the combination of earthy beetroot, sweet crab and smokey sauce is brilliant. Add a peppery leaves salad and you’ve got a perfect meal!
Word to the wise – don’t decide to make a sabayon after you come home from an arms session at the gym! The whisking is a work-out all in itself.

Oh, and the beet patties are fairly fragile, so be super careful when flipping and serving.
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon


Roast Beetroot Patties

2 large beetroot
1 tbsp olive oil, plus more for frying
400g tin lentils
1 cup cooked quinoa
½ tsp salt
1 tsp dried basil
1 egg
2/3 cup oats (GF if need be)

Preheat the oven to 170C. Scrub the beets, then drizzle with 1 tbsp oil and wrap tightly in foil. Place in the oven and roast until fork-tender – around 40 minutes. Set aside to cool. When cool, rub with your fingers to remove the skins. Cut into quarters.

Place the beets and lentils into your food processor and pulse 4-5 times to break up the veges a bit and combine. Add the salt, basil and egg and pulse another 4-5 times to blend well. Remove to a bowl and add the oats, mix in with your hands, blending together well. Form into approximately 8 patties and lay out on a lined baking tray (just to save dishes) and place in the fridge for half an hour to firm up.
Heat a layer of oil in a large frypan to a medium heat and gently slide 4 patties in the pan. Cook for 5 minutes, or until the patties are crisp on the bottom. Again, very gently flip with a spatula and cook for another 3 minutes. Remove to a paper towel lined plate and tent with tin foil to keep warm while you cook the next 4.
 
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon


Smokey Tequila Sabayon on Crab

1 clove garlic, sliced
1 tbsp honey
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp tequila
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp smokey paprika
200g cooked crab flesh, picked over for shell and cartilage.

Heat a tbsp. of oil in a frypan over a low heat and put the slices of garlic in. Toss around in the hot oil until browned and crisp. Drain on paper towel.
Preheat the oven to 150C. On a lined baking tray, form 6 small, tight piles of the crab flesh.

Fill a small saucepan with water and place a glass bowl over it. Heat to medium, until there are gentle bubbles. Add the egg yolks and honey to the glass bowl and whisk constantly until the eggyolks triple in volume and lighten. Take off the heat and whisk whilst slowly drizzling in the tequila. Keep whisking until fully incorporated and then whisk in the salt and paprika.

Spoon a few tablespoons of the sabayon on top of the crab piles, then place in the oven for 10 minutes until the top is just browning and the crab is heated through.

To serve, place a beetroot patty on the plate and gently slide a crab pile on top. Serve with a green salad

 
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon
Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Unusual Inspiration - Grilled Barramundi with Thai Mango and Cashew Sauce




I read a review of a Thai restaurant that described a mango-ey and cashew-y fish dish. Their description of the dish sounded amazing, and I was intrigued. They called it a name in Thai, that when I googled, yielded zero results. I was a little disappointed, but then set to trying to make something myself, using their flavours. This is by no means what I think their dish would’ve been. This is just a simple sauce topping grilled fish. But the combination of the mango and cashew was definitely a hit with the trademark Thai balance of sweet, sour, salty and hot.

I served this with barramundi, but any firm white fleshed fish would do. Salmon would work ok, too, but I think the barramundi would be better.

Seeing as we are now well and truly at the end of mango season, I used frozen mangoes for this dish. These were still from my tree that I froze when they were in abundance, but you can quite easily by frozen mango cheeks in most supermarkets for a  reasonable price. It’s like a little piece of summer in times when you need the spark.

So here you have a delicious dish, inspired by a restaurant I've never been to, a dish I've never heard of, let alone eaten. Just some words on a screen.

 
 
Grilled Barramundi with Thai Mango and Cashew Sauce
2 barramundi fillets
2 mangoes
¾ cup roasted, unsalted cashews
1 bunch coriander and stems
1 thumb-size piece of ginger, peeled and grated
2 long green chilis, minced
2 tbsp fish sauce
Juice of 3 limes


Pat fillets dry, then season and sprinkle with zest of one lime. Set aside.

Roughly chop the cashews either with your knife or a processor. Vary the pieces so you get some bigger chunks, and some is very finely chopped. Cube the mangoes, add to a small saucepan with the cashews, ginger, chilis and coriander stems. Cover, then simmer over a medium-low heat until the mangoes start breaking up 5-10 minutes.

Add the fish sauce and lime juice and if needed, a splash of water to loosen the mixture to a more sauce-like consistency. Stir well, then check for seasoning. If your mangoes aren’t particularly sweet, you may need a teaspoon or so of raw sugar to get the right balance. Leave simmering over a very low heat while you cook the fish.

Heat some grapeseed oil in a frypan of medium-high heat. When the oil is nice and hot (but not quite smoking) place the barramundi skin side down and cook for 2 minutes. Flip over and cook for a further 2 minutes or until almost cooked the whole way through.

Serve the fish topped with the mango cashew sauce, with a salad and/or steamed rice on the side

 

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Grilled Crab with Gin and Pomegranate Sabayon - with Warm Pink Grapefruit, Zucchini and Buckwheat Salad


Sometimes I see trends in types of recipes that go through my foodporn news feeds and it makes me think, hmm, I’ve never tried that before. It’s such a common dish, or component of a dish and despite being quite adventurous in my cooking, it’s not something I’ve ever made. Or even contemplated making – like mac and cheese. Can you believe this last weekend was the first time I’d ever made bĂ©chamel sauce? As I was stirring the milk and it was magically thickening and turning into a delicious thick sauce in a way I’d never seen before, I was thinking about starting this blog. It was initially about trying new things and opening myself up to new cooking experiences, so that we didn’t eat the same dishes on rote. But although the flavours I mix together are often unique and different and new, my methods of cooking haven’t really evolved much.

I watched Julie and Julia on the weekend (with a large bowl of mac and cheese using aforementioned bĂ©chamel sauce to cope with all that delicious food on screen) and watching Julie debone a duck and going through the calf leg gelatin section of Julia Child’s cookbook made me determined to make a few more things requiring a different cooking technique to my usual. Whilst I don’t think I’ll ever buy a calf leg, or possibly even debone a duck, I will definitely try a few new things.

I wrote before about being scared of roasting a duck, and that experiment turning out deliciously well. And one of the other things I’ve never really attempted seriously before is sauces or custards with egg. Even making ice creams I try to avoid using custard based ones because cooking eggs like that scares me. I figure I’ll end up with scrambled eggs and ruin the whole thing. But I made a chocolate pavlova for Mothers’ Day and ended up with a whole bunch of egg yolks and decided it was the perfect time to make a pink grapefruit curd. Again, I enjoyed watching the magic of the yolks and grapefruit juice thicken and become creamy and turn from ingredients into an actual dish. So the next step was to make a sabayon sauce. Sabayon (or zabaglione) is a light and fluffy sauce, drink or dessert made using some form of alcohol and egg yolks as the main ingredients.

Things I’ve learnt in these two egg-based sauce dishes is that you need to be patient at first, slowly drizzling the hot liquid into the eggs and whisking first before putting it on the heat and whisking consistently at a brisk pace. But it’s definitely a trick worth trying, you really do feel there is a science behind cooking.

Given that it’s Autumn and the markets are full of pomegranates, this sabayon is pomegranate flavoured and paired with one of my favourite spirits – Gin. I again used the West Winds Sabre for it’s specific citrus notes, but if you can’t get your hands on it, substitute Bombay Sapphire. And like my last Gin dish, it uses crab meat. I had this frozen from our very successful crabbing trip in summer, but you can generally get your hands on crab or crab meat at most supermarkets. There’s something about gin and crab that just *work*, you know! I then put it under the grill to heat the crab and lightly toast the top of the sabayon. The end result is a toasty, airy, citrusy puff of rich sauce on top of the flaky crab meat. So. Good.

This was paired with a warm buckwheat salad. I think next time, I’d like to add a few plain salted tortilla chips as well, for a textural counterpoint.



Grilled Crab with Gin and Pomegranate Sabayon
2/3 cup West Winds Sabre Gin
4 tbsp pink grapefruit juice
2 pomegranates, seeded
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt to taste
300g cooked crab meat, picked over for cartilage and shell

Seed the pomegranates and reserve ¼ of the arils for the salad. Put the gin, grapefruit juice and pomegranate seeds into a small saucepan and simmer until the liquid has reduced to about ¼ of a cup.

Line a baking tray with paper and divide the crab meat into 4. Tightly pack with your hands into patties and set aside until sauce is ready.

Once the gin mixture has reduced, strain through a fine sieve into a glass bowl that you can set above simmering water. Set a small saucepan of water to simmer. Add the egg yolks to the reduced gin and whisk briskly for a few minutes to fully incorporate, then place over the simmering water. Whisk constantly and briskly until the sauce becomes light and fluffy, the colour will turn a pretty pale purple. It’ll take about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and drizzle the olive oil into the mixture, whisking slowly for a few minutes until emulsified. Taste and season as needed. Set aside until salad is ready and you can grill the crab.

Spoon the mixture over the crab and place under a pre-heated grill for 2-3 minutes until toasted and brown.
 

























Warm Pink Grapefruit, Zucchini and Buckwheat Salad
2/3 cup buckwheat
1 ½ cup water
½ tsp salt
Big pinch fresh black pepper
Olive oil
½ tsp mustard seeds
½ tsp cumin seeds
¼ tsp coriander seeds
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini, diced
2/3 cup corn kernels
1 pink grapefruit, segmented and diced
1 tbsp tamari
2 silverbeet leaves, stripped and shredded
1 Avocado, sliced
Handful toasted almonds, roughly chopped
¼ of the pomegranate arils reserved from making the sabayon

Put the buckwheat, water, salt and pepper in a medium saucepan. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer until the buckwheat is cooked, but still chewy, around 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork and set aside.

In a frypan, heat a splash of olive oil and fry the garlic until translucent. Add the cumin, mustard seeds and coriander seeds, stir well to coat in the oily garlic mix. Add the zucchini and corn kernels and cook for 5-10 minutes until the zucchini is soft. Take off the heat.

Stir through the cooked buckwheat, tamari, grapefruit pieces and silverbeet leaves.

Serve with sliced avocado, toasted almonds and the reserved pomegranate arils on top.

 Gently remove the crab with sabayon patties and serve alongside