Adventures of Katsudon

This is one of Katsudon’s favourite dishes in the whole world. I used to patronise a little Italian restaurant on Lygon St which served a tantalising version, and was bitterly disappointed when after a few years the chef seemed to have left, or got Alzheimer’s, and the dish became an awful, sloppy mess. I never went back and since then have been experimenting at home to make a similar version. Fortunately it’s not that hard, and Neil Perry’s book “Food I love” has quite a good recipe for it. Clams are really not that expensive so this dish is really value for money (and a waste of money if you have it outside!!) Feel free to adjust the chilli as you please! The recipe also calls for some dry white wine - you can get a great cleanskin at Dan Murphy’s for about $4. And you must cook the dish with a glass of sauvignon blanc on hand.

Ingredients

1kg clams
250ml olive oil
4 shallots, finely chopped
1 or 2 small red chillies, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 tsp chilli flakes
60 ml dry white wine
400g dried spaghetti
1/3 bunch chopped flatleaf parsley

Clean the clams by rinsing in cold water. Cook the spaghetti in boiling water. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and add the garlic, shallots, chillies, chilli flakes and bring to the boil. Add the wine, then the clams and shut with a tight lid. Shake the pan once or twice and cook, covered, for 3-4 minutes or until all the clams are open. Turn off heat and add the spaghetti and parsley and toss well. Season well with sea salt and pepper. (I like to also add another splash of olive oil at this stage).

Serves 4

The first time I tried a dish similar to this was in Perth at the legendary Blue Duck in Cottesloe. A big bowl of steaming mussels with a coconutty milk sauce, lashings of chilli, and the freshness of lemongrass…. Mmmm!! Now this is what I call Fusion cuisine…

Tonight I made this delightfully simple dish at home, and it just blew our minds. perhaps because I quadrupled the amount of chilli that was prescribed!! Well I am a chilli freak… Anyway, it certainly had enough kick to send the endorphins rushing, and send me on a natural high!

This dish would set you back some $25 in a reasonably fancy establishment, but shouldn’t - it is child’s play to make, and costs very little.

(recipe modified from Gordon Ramsay’s in this month’s delicious magazine).
Ingredients

1 kg mussels (we bought Tasmanian ones for $8.50 a kg. There are cheaper local ones which are probably just as good).

1 stalk lemongrass

4 small red chillies (Chillipadis) - or less if you aren’t as masochistic as we are

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 thumbnail size pieces of ginger, grated

2-3 kaffir lime leaves

200ml coconut cream

1/2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp lime juice

small handful each torn basil and coriander leaves

Methods

Clean the mussels by washing in cold water, scrubbing off any barnacles, and pulling the beards off. Discard any that don’t close after a firm tap.

Remove the outer layers of the lemongrass and cut in half; chop the inner part of the lemongrass finely.

Heat some oil in a large saucepan and gently fry the chilli, lemongrass, ginger and garlic until fragrant

Add the Mussels, coconut cream, outer lemongrass parts, and lime leaves, shake to mix, and cover

Steam for 4-5 minutes, shaking the pan a few times
Add lime juice, fish sauce and sugar to taste (Add less first as it is difficult to adjust otherwise) then add herbs and serve with lots of crusty bread and a delicious Sauvignon blanc preferably from the Marlborough region in New Zealand.

Don’t plan anything energetic for after your meal as you will be in a food coma!!!

This recipe serves two people as a small main meal (Plan another simple dish to serve with it, or else increase the quantities).

ps. I think it would be great to add a pinch of turmeric to the mussels to give the sauce a lovely yellow colour.

We all know fish is healthy brain food, low in fat and high in all the good things, and Katsudon likes to have fish at least once a week. The main problem is that it has to be really fresh so one can’t have it every day, unless one doesn’t work fulltime hhmmmm.

Katsudon has been enjoying steamed fish Chinese style for a number of years now. I remember a scrumptious steamed fish in some Chinese restaurant a long time ago -I think it could have been a steamed Murray cod steamed with julienned ginger, spring onion and lots of yummy sauce! Katsudon LOVES drowning her rice in sauce! Since then I’ve tried heaps of times to emulate that dish and usually with mixed results. My favourite fish to steam have been Murray cod (difficult to find now that you can’t farm it any more - or is that can’t catch the wild fish commercially?), jade perch (a nice small fish, really great for two people, with a thick layer of fish fat - yummy and good for you!), and more recently barramundi. I have also steamed a whole coral trout once, but it was horribly expensive!!

Katsudon used to go to Pacific House on Victoria St in Richmond where you can buy live fish. You choose your fish and they fish it out using a net and place it, flapping madly around, on the weighing scales. Then they kill the fish and gut and scale it and off you go. Be warned though - sometimes the fish keeps intermittently flapping around once it’s handed back to you! This can happen for up to ten or fifteen minutes!

We go to Prahran Markets now and always go to the same fishmonger - I’m not sure why - maybe because they do seem to have the largest range of fish and seafood (They even have Uni! Sea urchin!) or maybe because they are always so friendly. Anyway I’m not sure what they are called but they are on the corner!

I planned to steam a barramundi yesterday but there was none to be had so my fishmonger recommended a bream. About $15 a kilo so $8.70 for a fish for two people. I followed the instructions in one of my favourite cookbooks “Food of China”. The difference is that you don’t steam the fish with the ginger and spring onion. Well you steam it will a tablespoon of ginger, and a marinade of rice wine, soya sauce and sesame oil. When the fish is done (8 minutes for ours) you heat up some vegetable oil and sesame oil until it’s smoking, then you garnish the fish with sliced spring onion and julienned ginger and pour the oil over the fish. It makes a wonderful crackling and sizzling sound. Serve with lots of rice so you can spoon the sauce over it, taking care to avoid any bones!!

The bream was wonderful - the best fish we’ve had so far! The flesh was lovely, white and soft and smooth, and slightly sweet. There were few bones.

So we ate for less than $5 a person - a meal that might cost us more than $20 in a restaurant! Very easy and really quick to prepare and cook, just a bit of chopping at the beginning. Katsudon gives this five stars!