Laksa

Cruising the food blogs I visit on a daily basis, I came across a recipe for a Malaysian curry soup I had never tried before. My family and I are Malaysian cuisine enthusiasts, so when I saw the words spicy, coconut and curry together, I knew I had to try it. Laksa is a coconut based curry soup. The main ingredients for most versions of curry laksa include tofu puffs, shrimp, cockles and is commonly served with a spoonful of sambal chilli paste. I cheated and bought the curry paste from a local asian grocery store but everything else was fresh! 

Curry Laksa

Ingredients

1 packet of Curry Laksa Paste
1 can of light coconut milk
shrimpies
tofu
greens ( spinach, bok choy or whatever you like, I also used enoki mushrooms this time to add more veg )
hard boiled eggies
rice noodles

To garnish:
green onion
bean sprouts

Directions

1. In a big pot, bring 1000 ml water to boil. Add in the paste, and coconut milk on medium heat for 5 minutes. By this time you can see some oil floating on the top of the broth. Remove some of it.
2. Add in the greens, prawns and tofu (I cooked the shrimp and tofu slightly before adding). Let the soup simmer for another 2 minutes until heated through. Stir and bring it up to a slow boil and turn off the heat. 
4. To serve put a handful of noodles at the bottom of a bowl and ladle in your broth mixture, top it with bean sprouts, green onion and egg to garnish. Slurp it up!

End of Summer Salad Rolls (and Wontons)

After the influx of Italian food over the last few weeks, I moved my cooking adventures east by attempting to make salad rolls and shrimp wontons. Note: both of these things are NOT easy or quick to make, so if you are a) starving, or b) impatient, stop reading now and go to your Urbanspoon app to find the nearest asian HITW ( hole in the wall ).

Salad Rolls

Ingredients

shrimp

iceburg lettuce

green onion

red cabbage

cucumber

peppers

bean sprouts

rice paper rolls

Directions

1. On cutting board or a pie plate works well, dip a round of rice paper in hot water until pliable, just about 30 seconds.

2. Carefully lay rice paper on surface and arrange all ingredients in a row at one end of rice paper. Tightly roll up rice paper, folding in sides when half rolled. (Don’t worry if the first one is messy – it usually takes at least one to get the feel of rolling the salad rolls). Repeat with remaining rice paper rounds. Wrap rolls with damp paper towel, store in a resealable bag and chill. I served with chili oil, hoisin and peanut sauce to dip.

Shrimp Wontons

Ingredients

shrimp

wonton wrappers

green onion

sesame oil

salt

pepper

egg

Directions

1. Coarsely chop shrimp into pieces (not too small) and mix well with the above seasonings. Set aside. Fill each wonton skin with 1 heaping teaspoon of filling and seal the wonton skin with the beaten egg.

2. Boil the wontons for a couple of minutes or until they start floating. Serve chili oil and/or sweet soy dipping sauce.

The Giant Zucchini Invasion

My mama gave me a 5lb zucchini from the garden last week.  What's a girl to do with a legume of that size? MAKE ZUCCHINI BREAD OF COURSE! 

Ingredients

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 
  

Directions

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

Yield:  2 loaves

You can never have enough Italian...

Yet another story of a craving gone haywire.  We had plotted for an entire 7 days a dinner at Jang Mo Jib ( Korean Hot Pot ) for a Friday night troth with our very dear friends. Lo and behold, lights off and an empty dining space awaited us. Once again with disappointed tummies and a hankering for a stiff drink, we walked down the street to discover another cozy little Italian spot called Tavola. New to the west end of Vancouver this place had a line up out the door.  We all agreed to take our chances and wait to see what all the hubbub was about. We started with an antipasto salami platter to share.  The girls whispered an order of eggs with white sardines to the server because we knew the boys would disapprove, no one likes Friday night fish breath. For our mains we all ordered different pastas from casarecce with pork and fennel meatballs to linguini with anchovies, garlic, lemon and chili.  If you're going to go fish, go fishy or go home right?  http://tavolavancouver.com/tavolavancouver.com/welcome.html

East Side Italian

Strolling through East Vancouver last weekend getting our fill of cheap produce and the melodic sounds of car horns and mother tongues, we had a craving for tacos, specifically, Tacofino.  Since our visit to the original truck in Tofino last month, we've been wanting to hit up one of the local spots.  Unfortunately, we both work during the hours the two trucks (that are steps from our apartment!) operate. Thinking we've beat the system, we go to their new restaurant location on Hastings and Nanaimo only to see a sign revealing that they've experienced a power outage that would set them back a few days. With angry, empty tummies and a bag full of discount produce, we walked down the street to discover Campagnolo Roma. The location may not have the best ambience, but boy do they know how to do a casual Italian style dinner inspired by the flavours from the Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna regions of Italy. We had the Bianca pizza with pancetta (obv) and the Tagliatelle with fresh tomatoes, garlic and chilis. Other than the ridiculously fresh pasta and homemade pizza dough, the one thing that will definitely bring us back here is their pizza spice. Instead of the traditional chili flakes and parmesan, they serve this aromatic blend of spices (fennel,pepper,chilis,olive oil) to top your pizza with. I doused my pizza with this spice sent from the heavens and loved every bite. I may try and re-create this at home, stay tuned...

Buck Buck....

There are a thousand ways you could prepare a whole chicken, but sometimes sticking to the basics can be the most rewarding. This recipe actually came from one of our Jamie Oliver cook books, and it turns out perfect almost every time.  I used the leftover meat to make chicken soup the next day in our crock pot.  Slurp slurp!

Ingredients

• 1 x whole chicken 
• 2 medium onions 
• 2 carrots
• 2 sticks of celery
• 1 bulb of garlic
• olive oil 
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 lemon 
a small bunch of fresh thyme, rosemary, bay or sage, or a mixture

Directions

• Preheat your oven to 475°F
• There’s no need to peel the vegetables – just give them a wash and roughly chop them 
• Break the garlic bulb into cloves, leaving them unpeeled 
• Pile all the veg and garlic into the middle of a large roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil 
• Drizzle the chicken with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper, rubbing it all over the bird 
• Carefully prick the lemon all over, using the tip of a sharp knife (if you have a microwave, you could pop the lemon in these for 40 seconds at this point as this will really bring out the flavour) 
• Put the lemon inside the chicken’s cavity, with the bunch of herbs 
• Place the chicken on top of the vegetables in the roasting tray and put it into the oven 
• Turn the heat down immediately to 400°F and cook the chicken for 1 hour and 20 minutes 
• If you’re doing roast potatoes and veggies, this is the time to start them – get them into the oven for the last 45 minutes of cooking 
• Baste the chicken halfway through cooking and if the veg look dry, add a splash of water to the tray to stop them burning 
• When cooked, take the tray out of the oven and transfer the chicken to a board to rest for 15 minutes or so 
• Carve and nom nom nom....