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

Preparation time about 25 minutes

Ingredients

3 red capsicums
4 large Roma tomatoes
1 onion
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
350ml vegetable or chicken stock
1 tbsp tomato paste
chopped flatleaf parsley to garnish

Preheat the oven to 200C.
Halve and seed the capsicums. Place the capsicum and the tomatoes, onion and garlic, all unpeeled, in a baking dish lined with baking paper. Roast for about 30minutes or until well browned and tender. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Peel vegetables and blend with half the stock until smooth. Return to saucepan and add the rest of the stock and the tomato paste. Season to taste and heat and serve garnished with freshly chopped parsley.

The menu is not for the faint-hearted, featuring ox tongue, pork belly and a hefty Scotch fillet. Neither is the shoju - be warned, it may result in embarrasing behaviour and a few regrets the day after! You won’t regret the food, though - and you’ll be hankering for your next dose of kimchi again soon.

Ingredients

2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 green capsicum, diced
2 chicken breast fillets, cubed
2 rashers bacon, diced
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp allspice
2 tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp saffron threads, soaked in 2 tbsp warm water
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp brandy
2 tbsp plain flour

1 L chicken stock
3/4 cup basmati rice

1tbsp olive oil
6 large unshelled prawns
300g okra, thickly sliced

1 small can evaporated milk (or 2tbsp cream for those of us who don’t mind a bit of saturated fat)
3 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce

Heat the oil in a large stockpot, and add the bacon, garlic, onion, capsicum, chicken, cayenne and allspice. Cook, stirring for 5-8 minutes or until golden brown. Sitr in the saffron and soaking liquid, brandy, tomato paste and flour, and cook for 3 minutes, stirring continuously.

Gradually add the stock and bring to the boil. Add the rice, reduce heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile heat the olive oil in a pain and fry the prawns and okra for 2 minutes or until the prawns change colour. Add to the gumbo, then stir in the evaporated milk, parsley and tabasco sauce and heat for 1-2 minutes. Serve in big bowls with extra Tabasco sauce to taste.

Ingredients

French stick or two
olive oil
chopped garlic
tomatoes
parsley

Chop the tomatoes and parsley and mix with olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Slice the bread and grill under a preheated grill for a few minutes. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with chopped garlic. Garnish with the chopped tomatoes and parsley and enjoy as part of an antipasto spread. Mmmm!!

First you have to get hold of some good quality Chinese roast duck. Half a duck is plenty. In Melbourne you can try the famous Pacific House in Richmond or South Yarra. We actually got our duck from a very busy roasting house in Springvale, somewhere in the main shopping center… Make sure they chop the duck into pieces for you. It’s also quite good to get the duck the day before and put it in the fridge. The next day all the duck fat has coagulated and is easy to remove from the meat. For those who are feeling a bit health conscious laa!

Then you need some good quality Thai red curry paste. We got some that came in a small can and unfortunately I can’t remember the brand, but it started with M. We have tried the Volcom brand too and that’s not bad. Just don’t go for an Australian brand like Asia at home or something like that - Just no kick in it, strictly for kwi low tastes only laaa! So, stick to something from good old South East Asia. Well, this latest curry paste we got certainly packed a punch!! woohh!

Other ingredients:

400ml coconut milk
3 kaffir lime leaves
2 garlic cloves, crushed
8 spring onions, cut into 3cm lengths
1/4 cup chopped coriander leaves
brown sugar to taste
vegetables as desired (potatoes and eggplant are good)

Heat some oil in a wok and fry the garlic and spring onion and curry paste (About 2 tbsp depending on your tastebuds) until fragrant. Watch out, the curry paste tends to spit!!

Add the coconut milk, lime leaves and the vegetables. Bring to a boil and simmer until the vegetables are slightly underdone. This takes about 20 minutes with cubed potatoes. Add brown sugar to taste (I added about 2 tsp I think). You may also need to add more liquid - chicken stock or milk is fine.

Add the duck pieces and bring to the boil again then simmer gently until the duck is heated throughout. Don’t rush this part - underheated poultry makes for bad gastro. Add the coriander leaves in the last few minutes.

Serve with steamed jasmine rice, of course, topped with more freshly chopped coriander.

Yumm!! Will last for days and is even better the next day. Definitely deserves a five katsudon rating.

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.

The kway teow arrived looking rather promising, having a nice burnt look and lots of bean sprouts. When one poked around though there was way too much Lap Cheong, and I ended up fishing out most of it as I don’t like the sweetness of it in my savoury kway teow.

It was a passable dish, but not memorable, and failed on a few essential points:
1. It was too oily. I like my FKT quite dry - it must be cooked quickly in a really hot wok. It can’t arrive glistening with oil.
2. I already mentioned the chinese sausage. I don’t know why Lap cheong was ever invented, perhaps to torture FKT fans like me. I cannot see any possible use for a sickly sweet hard fatty lump of processed pork as an ingredient for any dish, let alone FKT.
3. The egg was rather bedraggled, oily and pathetic, and lay in a small wet clump on one side of the plate. It should be well fried, slightly burnt, and distributed evenly through the noodles.
4. It didn’t have enough taste and aroma - I think that particular taste comes from a combination of a very hot wok, garlic, and a secret ingredient which I have heard is squid sauce. This FKT had the hot wok only, and it wasn’t quite hot enough.

The dessert was quite enjoyable though - an innovative pandan flavoured sago pudding, served with lashings of coconut milk and gula melaka. Sadly, the waitress frowned at me and looked puzzled when I asked if cendol was available.

Not quite worth a trip out to the ‘burbs, but we enjoyed the drive and change of scene anyway.

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!