Asian Food | Finding Feasts

Vietnamese Chicken w/ Red Quinoa Stir Fry

Looking for a ridiculously tasty and healthy dish for dinner tonight? Well go no further… Vietnamese Chicken w/ Red Quinoa Stir Fry is what you’ve been looking for!

This is an outstanding, flavour packed chicken meal that honestly, you can whip up in half an hour… Even quicker the second time round once you have made the big batch of marinade. Just store what’s left in a large jar and it will keep for ages in the fridge.

The Vietnamese marinade is so versatile that you can use it with both red and white meats or fish to baste or marinade with and also as a dipping sauce.

I’m reasonably new to quinoa and fell in love with it from my first taste. The texture is amazing also, particularly with this red quinoa, almost like little caviars that kind of burst in your mouth. This red one is particularly yummy with a slightly sweet taste that complements Asian cooking so well.

A little something you may not know about quinoa is that it’s actually related to green leafy vegetables like spinach. Maybe that’s why it’s such a super food, covers all bases!

If you haven’t had a chance to taste this yummy grain yet, you won’t be disappointed with this dish.

Warming comfort food… Blondie

BlondieLeave a comment

Coconut Beef w/ Thai Red Curry Paste… From Scratch

Coconut Beef w/ Thai Red Curry Paste…From Scratch. This is a stunning, slow cooked Thai dish using Martin Boetz’s Red Curry Paste recipe from his stunning book, Longrain: Modern Thai Food.

If you are going to make one from scratch you must try this one! Plus it makes 1 cup worth of paste, which is basically 5 meals so it’s well worth the effort. I explain my favourite way of storing pastes and the such in the recipe so you have it easily on hand.

I used a gravy beef for my recipe as I love big chunks of melt in your mouth meat, that along with the sauce and the rice to sop it up with and you have a meal you would pay a small fortune for quite happily. Serve it with a side of shredded greens.

Enjoy, Blondie

BlondieLeave a comment

Pork & Lentil Thai Red Curry + Thai Pork Meatballs w/ Dipping Sauce

What to do with leftover roasting pork? Make Pork & Lentil Thai Red Curry + Thai Pork Meatballs w/ Dipping Sauce

With close to a kilo of pork to use (leftover from our Christmas in July) and the weather warming up, a roast was out of the question. Feeling like something Thai inspired I decided to do meatballs.

It feels like forever since I spent a day in the kitchen pottering around, which is why there are 3 different recipes included in the one post. The first one is…

Pork and Lentil Thai Red Curry

Mum does a gorgeous Curry Pork and Lentil soup, which can also be served over rice if you choose, so this is my version, Thai style!

The benefit of using a roasting pork for the curry is that the pork becomes beautiful and tender while simmering away with the lentils for 40 mins or so, but you can most certainly use pork mince. I also cooked them in the oven first though so they would retain their shape.

Some notes for making this dish…

Buy a pre made Red Curry paste – there are so many out there and it’s trial and error to find the one you will love. Be warned some are extraordinarily, mouth searingly hot!

If you do find that it’s just too hot for you but you love the flavour add some sweet yoghurt (not Greek style) and lime, works a treat.

Use coconut oil to cook with – it smells divine when cooking and has just so many health benefits – LOVE IT!

Thai Pork Meatballs w/ Sweet Chili, Dill and Coriander Sauce

While rolling out the meatballs I started feeling hungry – it was lunchtime, so quickly fried some of them up and they were just so good I had to give them their own recipe page, which is the reason for this second recipe. Served with a sweet and spicy dipping sauce they make a lovely plate of appetisers. Skewered onto some ornate chopsticks or served with the sauce already over them (very Christmasie) they are great tasting and so quick.

You can make these at anytime, freeze them and then cook as you need them.

Sweet Chili Sauce

I always have Sweet Chili Sauce on hand, it’s the only sauce my son likes so I make big batches of it and it lasts for ages. I also have the jar out on the kitchen bench so it’s always at hand to add to food that needs some sweetness, it’s used instead of sugar as it already has the chili infused and the zing of vinegar that is the perfect compliment to any Asian dish.

Enjoy, Blondie

BlondieLeave a comment

Shiitake and Pork Spring Rolls

FinSkis Pork and Shiitake Spring Rolls — Shiitake and Pork Spring Rolls recipe

Shiitake and Pork Spring Rolls… One of my favourite recipe books at the moment is Thai Street Food by David Thompson. It’s a massive book both in content and actual size, brimming with gorgeous Thai recipes and stunning photography.

I often go through stages of food styles and my latest one is Thai – although this one has been going on for a while – as soon as there is a warm day I find myself drawn back into the heady aroma of Asian cooking.

This is my first attempt at this one, well, it’s my first attempt at spring rolls so I was quite surprised at how difficult it was to separate the spring roll sheets, but was equally surprised at just how stretchy they were. I was certain I was going to tear them to pieces trying to pull them apart, and I wasn’t being at all gentle!

I got 8 large spring rolls from this recipe so when I do them again I will be at least tripling the ingredients just so I have leftovers to freeze. I like to have emergency rations for when family or friends drop around or to take with me when it’s my family doing the drop-ins.

Happy folding!

Blondie

Blondie1 Comment

Soft Shell Crab in a Sesame Tempura

Finding Feasts - Sesame Tempura Soft Shell Crab — Soft Shell Crab in a Sesame Tempura Recipe

Soft Shell Crab in a Sesame Tempura – This recipe is now one of my all-time favourite dishes to make as it is so simple and the prep involved is really quick and easy, but you end up with a simply stunning dish both in taste and in presentation.

I have served soft shell crab twice so far, in the Blondie/Bella dinner party nights that we hold for each other’s families every 6 weeks or so. The first version was this recipe but I threw some coriander into the batter for a bit of Thai inspiration – I named that dinner ‘All Thaied Up’.

As you can guess from the title, it was a Thai/Asian theme. There were 3 courses (4 really, but dessert was a purchased pistachio ice cream when my peanut ice cream didn’t work out so it’s not included as a course). Just prior to this dinner party two fellow makeup artist friends took me out to Longrain here in Sydney, for a belated birthday dinner. The night was the hottest night on record for Sydney – it was still 33 degrees at midnight! People were walking around with their shirts lifted off their bodies and skirts hitched up just to try and cool down. It was a funny sight in Sydney at night, especially in Surry Hills. Anyway, I was so inspired by Longrain that I purchased Martin Boetz’ book, Longrain: Modern Thai Food, and set forth to recreate some of his dishes (by the way, the Ginger Rogers cocktail is an absolute MUST! Although it’s unfortunately not in the book)

The first course for my dinner was the Light Red Curry of Angus Beef, the second course was the Peanut Curry of Grilled Beef (I did it with lamb) and the third was the Sesame and Coriander Soft Shell Crab (not a Longrain recipe). The fourth was going to be his (Martin’s) Peanut Ice Cream, which was just sooooo amazing, but the recipe isn’t in his book so it was purely guess work – which failed! But my soft shell crab was fantastic! I served it with 2 dipping sauces, a sweet chili sauce, and a ginger and soy sauce.

If you are brave enough you can purchase live crabs, but I’m not! I get my soft shell crab from an Asian mini mart in Chatswood. They come frozen in a nice little box of about 10 or so, with each crab neatly put into a plastic sleeve which means I always has some in the freezer for emergencies!

Blondie

BlondieLeave a comment