Canapes | Finding Feasts

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

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