Category: Seafood

Scrumptious Prawn and Chicken Laksa

Prawn and Chicken Laksa
Click on image for this delicious recipe

Scrumptious Prawn & Chicken Laksa, this dish is more than scrumptious, it’s actually mood altering.

Amazing flavours perfectly balanced in a soothing, creamy broth makes this soup a must for when you feel like something uplifting or comforting.

One tip I’m always banging on about is that if you are making a paste from scratch, double or triple the recipe and freeze it in portions. This basically means you have a meal from scratch ready to go when you want it next time. There is barely any extra time involved in making one or three portions but saves you a good amount of time when you have a craving but are completely unmotivated to do the prep work.

Another tip is to never leave your rice noodles to cook in boiling water. I have never been able to get a good result from this method. I prefer to place them in a bowl and pour the hot water over them to soak. They are less likely to go soggy and when they are at your preferred texture, drain them and rinse under cold water. They can sit like this for ages so do it early and they are ready to go when you are.

Slurping permitted! Blondie

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Tuna Casserole Pots

Tuna Casserole Mornay
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Tuna Casserole or as it’s more commonly referred to here in Australia, Tuna Mornay, was a classic 70′s dish that most mums would have had as a routine family meal.

It’s funny though, looking through other tuna mornay recipes, not many use boiled eggs and I didn’t find one with capers or dill, but both my mum and my mother in law used these ingredients in their own tuna mornay recipes – maybe it was a recipe only shared amongst the army wives, their own secret recipe that no civilian would know about… till now that is.

This is truly an enjoyable dish and a version I’m sure you will adapt to your own tuna mornay recipe.

Spoon lickingly good!  Blondie  :)

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Prawn & Spinach Curry

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Click image for recipe

Prawn & Spinach Curry is a quick whip up dinner (under 30 mins) that is so full of beautiful flavours that it’s sure to be included in your regular dinner cycle.

It’s a bit of a mix of Thai and Indian style curries, and is delicious with steamed jasmine rice but can also be made into a stunning soup by adding one cup of chicken stock and serving with rice noodles.

Enjoy… Blondie

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Honey King Prawns

Finding Feasts - Honey King Prawns

Chinese food is a weakness of mine. Hubby and I use to love ordering massive amounts of food from my favourite Chinese restaurant up the road and then spend the night gorging ourselves – Honey king prawns, Mongolian lamb, Peking duck, Beef in black bean sauce, mixed entrees and rice. It certainly wasn’t all eaten in one sitting but also enjoyed over the next couple of days. Chinese food, for me, has always meant that you would sit yourself down in front of a banquet of food and enjoy the slow procession of tasting each and every dish, just one of the reasons why I love Yum Cha so much. As ‘street’ as Yum Cha is, it still has a decadence that’s very appealing.

Yesterday though, I suddenly realised that I should try making some of these dishes myself. I chose Honey king Prawns and Mongolian Lamb to be my first dishes. Both turned out to be so much better than my favourite restaurant’s equivalents that I will forever now be making them myself. The Mongolian Lamb was outstanding but was all eaten so I don’t have a photo to put up yet, will blog about it shortly. The Honey King Prawns were perfect. Lightly battered and a simple honey sauce drizzled over the top.

Finding Feasts - Honey King Prawns

Chinese food is very quick, so quick in fact that you really can produce your own banquet of food without feeling exhausted at the end of it.

Happy Year Of The Monkey!

Blondie  :)

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Hot Smoked Salmon & Dill Tartlets

Hot Smoked Salmon & Dill Tartlets
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Hot Smoked Salmon & Dill Tartlets – It’s party time! Birthday parties, Christmas parties, end of work parties… parties everywhere!

Finding Feasts Recipes

 

So, what do you make to feed to the masses? These Hot Smoked Salmon & Dill Tartlets are a must for six very good reasons…

  1. You can make lots of them very easily – plan on 2 to 3 per person.
  2. A great stomach filler – ideal for when drinking. Plus, it’s always such a disappointment when food doesn’t sustain you when at a party, especially when the party is around lunch time or dinner time.
  3. They can easily be eaten with one hand – very important as bubbles will be permanently occupying the other.
  4. Mess free – you want the bling to be from champagne and diamonds not drips of oil.
  5. These can be made ahead of time and then frozen, if necessary.
  6. You can serve them hot or cold – Great for parties at a park, think Glamour Picnic Parties… just don’t forget your heel protectors!

Hot Smoked Salmon & Dill Tartlets

Happy party season!  Blondie & Bella

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How To Make A Broth, Stock or Bone Broth

Broth, Stock or Bone Broth… What is the difference between the three? Is there a difference between the three?

There’s no mistaking what a stock is or a bone broth is but it can become a little unclear as to where a broth stands, here is my interpretation of the three…

How To Make A Broth, Stock or Bone Broth

Broth -Think of a broth as the finished product, a soup in a sense… Chicken Soup or Won Ton Noodle Soup all use a broth. It is a gently flavoured liquid that is made by flavouring water with meat, or very meaty bones, carrots, celery, light herbs, onion and most importantly seasoned with salt. It is lighter in flavour compared to the stock and bone broths and is always clear and thin, which is an absolute necessity in asian cuisine. 

The cooking time is much shorter compare with the other two methods, around 40 minutes (unless you are poaching a whole chicken).  There are no added health benefits to an extended cooking time for broths, and it will even negatively affect the flavour of your broth, especially if you are making a fish broth, which will turn bitter if cooked longer than 30-40 minutes. All the flavour and nutrients you want will be leached out into the liquid during this short cooking time.

My favourite broth is a chicken one. By poaching a whole chicken in water with the addition of carrots, onion, celery and seasoned well with peppercorns and salt, you end up with beautifully moist meat and a broth that is delicious and effortless – this method takes about 1 hour 20 minutes as it’s the whole chicken. The benefit of this method is you have a lot of meat leftover that can then be made into pies or a salad through the week along with plenty of chicken broth. As a bonus, the chicken carcass can be incorporated into a bone broth, just freeze till required.

Broths will remain quite fluid as opposed to the stocks and bone broth, which with their naturally high gelatin content, will turn to jelly once refrigerated. 

Vegetable and fish broths do not benefit from long cooks.

How To Make A Broth, Stock or Bone Broth

Stock – Is a component of cooking, it’s used to add body and flavour to a dish, generally not to have on it’s own, think of risotto, stews or gravy. It is made with well roasted bones –  ideally with quite a bit of meat still left on them for the extra flavour, and vegetables. Roasting the meaty bones is necessary to a good quality stock as you want rich, well developed flavours in a stock, which the roasting of the bones and vegetables will do. Un-roasted bones will leave a slightly odd, unpleasant flavour to the liquid.

Stocks are generally cooked for 6 -12 hours.

As I make quite big batches of stock at one time (10-12 cups worth) I personally choose to keep the added flavours of vegetables and herbs to a minimum, this way I can alter it to lean toward a particular cuisine when I want to. It’s still a very rich stock just not heavily loaded with flavours outside of the roasted meaty flavours.

Remember to keep all your bones from the roasts you make, in the freezer till you are ready to make your stock. My favourite stock combines the meaty bones of various beasts with the addition of a rabbit carcass  – the flavour is magical!

How To Make A Broth, Stock or Bone Broth

Bone broth – Think of bone broth as homemade medicine. Made to be drunk straight, especially the first ‘pressing’, it is the holy grail of the stewing liquids. Used for speeding the healing, repair and recuperation time from illness, reduce joint pain, reduce inflammation, prevent bone loss and build healthy skin, hair, and nails. Certain amino acids that come mostly from the bones can assist with a healthy gut and digestion, a balanced nervous system and strong immune system – just as chicken soup (using the whole chicken) has been proven to aide in healing, bone broth takes it that next step further. Made using mainly the bones – as that is where the amino acids and minerals will be coming from, it’s the very long stewing time, combined with a vinegar solution to draw out certain minerals, that makes the bone broth highly regarded for it’s health benefits. If you are making bone broth you are making it because of it’s centuries known health benefits, otherwise you would stick to stocks.

To get the most out of the bones do your best to source organic or biodynamic animals and birds,100% grass fed beef, pasture raised chickens… basically any animal or bird that has been raised well and healthily as you are making this bone broth for it’s health benefits so the bones need to be from the healthiest animals possible… and keep them all! As you come across them, bag and freeze them; accumulate them so you have a nice mound of bones, raw chicken carcasses etc to make your broth or stock. Continue reading “How To Make A Broth, Stock or Bone Broth” →

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