Earlier this week, I wrote about the seven course dinner I prepared for my brother and his wife. In that post, I shared the full menu as well as my recipe for the evening’s first course. Well, today I’m sharing another dish – another new recipe that was created especially for that meal.
Fifteen years ago Brisbanites could only dream of having the kind of access to farm fresh produce that much of Europe and Asia enjoyed for as long as anyone can remember. Roadside stalls with boxes of produce and an honesty box yielded you a hit and miss selection of whatever was in season if you were prepared to hit the hinterland on a weekend but other than that and what you could grow in your backyard, produce buying happened at the local fruiterer and increasingly, at the supermarket.
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of whipping up a real feast. The occasion was the birthdays and wedding anniversary of my brother and his wife, which all fall on the very same day in November. Because of our current work and child schedules, Su-Lyn and I don’t find the time to entertain as often or as dramatically as we used to. But for this dinner, I decided to go all out.
In The Five Obstructions, one of the strangest documentaries I’ve ever seen, the notorious filmmaker Lars von Trier challenges the equally controversial Jorgen Leth to remake his most famous short film, The Perfect Human, five times, each with a set of constraints of von Trier’s choosing. The stipulations – the film must be reshot in Cuba; it must be made into a cartoon; Leth himself must play the leading role – are patently ridiculous, as are the remakes, which manage to be even more avant garde than the original.
Whenever Christmas comes round, it signals the start of mum’s American Cheesecake baking season. Her record was set in the early 2000s when 47 cheesecakes were made and sent out our doors over a period of 3 weeks leading up to Christmas. The whole house just smelled of cheesecake… constantly. So safe to say, everyone in the family is a sucker for the dessert.
When I think of prime rib, I think of Lawry’s. I don’t crave red meat often, but when I need to scratch that itch, it’s go big or go home. Glistening slabs of marbled, well-aged, juicy, melt-in-the-mouth, immensely flavourful beef, with proper gravy, hearty mash, artery-clogging Yorkshire pudding, and perhaps creamed spinach as accompaniment, this is meat-and-potatoes Version 2.0. If there ever was a meal my hubby might walk over hot coals for, this would be it.
…because you can make them better at home.
Before I moved to Asia, I used to regularly buy these items in the supermarket. And actually a bit after I moved as well….until my then Singaporean boyfriend said…what? You don’t make your own chilli sauce? He was shocked. Appalled. Perhaps even a bit ashamed. Apparently a woman without her own recipe for sambal is not marriage material. Ha! Well the Singaporean boyfriend is no longer in the picture, but the recipe for sambal is.
I am so sorry that this site has been going bonkers for the past few days! If you are a regular visitor, you can see that somehow, we’ve lost all content posted after 7 November 2013.
This is a public service announcement. If you are a noodle lover, if you are a local food addict, if you like spice, or hell, just like food in general, do yourself a favour and go check out Violet Oon’s Kitchen and order her Dry Laksa.
To those familiar with the cuisine found in the South East Asian jungle, Amazonian cuisine may, or may not come as a surprise. It comprises similar preparation methods and ingredients, including grilled bananas, meats and seafoods. I had just come back from Tarapoto, a city in the San Martin region, and had sampled popular dishes such as tacacho, and patarascha, which involved the grilling of meats and seafoods on heliconia leaves.