Savory muffins

Went out for brunch on Sunday here in Wellington and had some delicious savoury muffins. They were cheese, spinach and pumpkin. It was a standard white flour muffin mix, with softened onions, shredded spinach, grated cheese and chunks of cooked pumpkin. I'm definitely going to try to recreate these when my muffin tins arrive!

Korean BBQ

Still in Hong Kong. Went out for a Korean meal last night. Believe it or not that is the first time that I've had Korean food.

To begin with they brought a range of pickles etc to the table. The highlights were the yam, the tiny little fishes and the spinach.

We then had a variety of thin cut marinated meat and fish to cook on the griddle in the middle of the table. The pork was very good and also the squid. We also had egg fried rice and spicy noodles, but I was getting on the full side by then.

To accompany all of this we had small cps of wild raspberry wine - very tasty.

Hong Kong seafood lunch

I'm spending a few days in Hong Kong on route to New Zealand. Today we went for lunch in the seafood restaurant district of Lei Yue Mun. There are lots of stalls selling fish and seafood from tanks. You pick what you want to have, they weigh it and price it and then you take it to one of the restaurants to have it cooked. We picked out a fish, a crab and some tiger prawns.

They brought salted peanuts cooked in their skins for us to have with our beer. Then they brought a plate of clams in black bean sauce. The tiger prawns that we selected were split in half, still in their shells, and cooked with garlic and spring onion. The fish was steamed whole with soy sauce and spring onions. The crab came as spicy crab- fried and covered in a heap of fried ginger, chilli, garlic and spring onion. we also had egg fried rice which had pork and prawns through it.

What a Hullabaloo

We went to the Ipswich Beer festival at the weekend. As it was the last night the choice was rather more limited than normal, but I still sampled a fine brew called Hullabaloo. Brewed by the Loddon Brewery it was an aromatic bitter with a hint of sweetness and a wonderful amber colour. You can find out more at: http://www.loddonbrewery.com/

Wild mushroom and cheese crepes

I'm in the process of using up all of my store cupboard ingredients at the moment and the need to use up leftovers etc. prompted the creation of this recipe. I really enjoyed the results so I'm posting the recipe here.

I took a handful of mixed dried wild mushrooms and soaked them in boiling water until soft (around 10 minutes) I then blitzed them with a clove of garlic. I softened the mixture in olive oil and then added a splash of brandy and then added about 3 handfuls of quartered closed cup mushrooms and cooked until softened. I finished the filling off my stirring in a couple of spoonfuls of creme fraiche and seasoning with salt and pepper. 

I then made up a batch of crepes and filled them with the mushroom mixture and sprinkled over some grated mature cheddar.

Creamy crisp crud

Yesterday was unfortunate in a number of ways. First, I had to go to Slough. Second, I arrived far too early. Third, the only place to wait was a well known US fast food outlet specialising in sweet dough based products.

This was the first time that I had actually had one of these and hopefully it will be the last. I'm not a fan of icing/glaze, so I went for the filled option, in this case apple and cinnamon. Apple and cinnamon is one of my favourite flavour combinations when it is done well.

The direct injection of glucose and mouth coating of cheap fat I was expecting, beyond that I probably hadn't given the experience enough thought and was woefully under prepared. The filling was sweet beyond belief and had virtually no cinnamon taste. The apple was dehydrated, but I find that quite appealing, a throw back to my youth spent eating dried apple rings. what was most disturbing about this experience was the dough. At first it had no taste whatsoever, then it left a lingering sense of chemically enhanced bitterness in the mouth. The dusting of cinnamon sugar type stuff was just plain weird.

There was no cream, no crispiness and no plate. Thankfully the espresso that accompanied it was passable, and the time passed quickly as I mentally noted my experiences for this critique!

Spicy stir fry

Made a stir fry for my husband's birthday dinner. I quite like stir frys, but I'm a bit hit and miss about making them. They often end up too sloppy, probably because I crowd the wok or it's not hot enough.

Anyway, the night before I slices some fillet steak and marinated it in chopped garlic, tamari (Japanese soy sauce) and sake. Just enough to wet it, not too much.

To make the stir fry I chopped spring onions and ginger and fried them with some chilli flakes until it was just beginning to brown. I then added sliced green and red pepper and cooked for a minute. Then I put in the beef and marinade. When the beef was still pink I put in some par-boiled noodles and broccoli and then added some oyster sauce from a jar (not too much). I took it off the heat and stirred in plenty of chopped coriander.