Given a $10 budget, to get creative with a potluck dish.

You can blame squarely on our inherited cultural psyche for hospitality that there's always the temptation if you're entertaining or wanting to wanting to impress, to go out of your way and buy the most expensive produce available. I must admit that it is difficult not to feel that way. It doesn't have to be that way. As an experiment in entertaining on a tight budget, I have invited about eight families to my home for a potluck party this long weekend (as Monday is a public holiday for Labour Day in New South Wales) but with a twist - each family is asked to bring a dish that served four to five and mustn't cost more than $10, along with a wine that cost $10 or less. I will post the outcome of the potluck party and the "bring a plate" recipes in the coming week. Since my philosophy is simple food, simply prepared, can be the best to eat I am going to shop around for some low cost ingredients and boost it with some flavour that will appeal to friends and family as my contribution. Please stay tuned.

Sydney was painted red...

Yesterday, I was woken to a surreal red glow in the sky just outside the window. At the same time, I was able to hear and see a severe wind was lashing and whipping up a bright orange haze across the field. Before I realised what actually happened, a blanket of red dust had begun to shroud Sydney just before dawn after a cold front moved in from central Australia and western NSW and causing severe delays at Sydney airport and prompting warnings from health authorities. By mid morning, everything was painted red inside and out side the house with a fine film of reddish colour of ochre powder. I have no idea how the red dust crept into the house with every window and door tightly shut.

A Mian Jin by any other name is still Mian Jin

I must admit that I didn't know seitan and mian jin ( 麵筋, a "wheat meat" often used as a vegetarian mock meat) is the same thing until I was invited to a vegetarian lunch at a friend's place. It must have been a clever marketing ploy to invent a fancy new name for a common vegetarian food, believed to have originated in ancient China, as a meat substitute now commonly available in many western supermarkets as well as in Asian grocers and health food stores. Although it may be new to the west, mian jin or seitan is a vegetarian food that has been eaten in Asia for hundreds of years. Besides, Asian vegetarian restaurants often use it used to simulate pork, poultry, beef, or even seafood, due to its ability to take on the texture and flavor of meat or seafood.
After lunch, I was given two recipes on how to make seitan or mian jin at home. One is using the traditional method of rinsing away the wheat flour under running water and leaving the gluten behind and other is made easier and quicker by using vital wheat gluten flour. Since I manage to buy the vital wheat gluten flour form the local Asian grocer, I made some seitan last weekend. I used it for an experimental vegetarian dish, which received an apt remark from our Teen son, "Dad's Mock Abalone", as it was chewy as fresh abalone!




Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten flour
1/4 cup rice powder
1 cup very cold water or vegetable broth
1/2 cup soy sauce

Simmering Stock:

10 cups water or vegetable stock
1/2 cup soy sauce
10cm kombu (dried kelp)

In a large bowl, mix together Vital Wheat Gluten Flour and rice powder. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and combine with a firm spatula, knead dough for about 10 minutes until a spongy, elastic dough is formed. Allow the dough to rest in a bowl for about 10 minutes. While the dough is resting, bring to boil water, soya sauce and kombu, in a large pot. Remove from heat and allow to cool. This stock must be cold before it is used. Now roll your dough into a log shape about 20cm long and cut into 3 equal sized pieces. Place the pieces in the broth. It is important that the water/broth be very cold when you add the dough, it helps with the texture and ensures that it doesn't fall apart. Bring the water to a boil.Turning the pieces every now and again Boil the seitan for about 30-45 minutes, or until it floats to the surface. Now you've completed the first step, Return the seitan to the cold simmering stock. Bring the stock to a boil, lower the temperature, and simmer in the stock for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Let it cool in the simmering broth for at least a half an hour. It is best if it cools completely. What you do next depends on the recipe you are using. If it calls for gluten use it as is. To store seitan, keep it refrigerated, immersed in the simmering stock. If it is brought to a boil in the simmering stock and boiled for 10 minutes twice a week, the seitan will keep indefinitely. Otherwise, use it within a week.

Barley Water aka Ee Bee Chui

Whenever my mother felt that there was an onset of an illness to anyone in the family, she would religiously believe in her ancient folk medicines and the mysterious healing power of the herbal teas that she brewed in a earthen kettle over a charcoal stove. Incidentally, the thought of having to drink the bitter herbal concoction was enough for us to make any sickness to go away. However, her first line of attack for any illness was making us to drink gallons of barley water. By the way, I am not talking about the stuff you buy in in a can or bottle. I'm talking about the viscous stuff she make up herself. It was the slimy viscosity of the homemade brew which did the trick and you don't get this in the brands you buy off the super market shelves these days. Brewed barley water is a traditional Chinese cooling drink; the addition of lemon is a fusion of Western idea and many would agree that the homemade brew is vastly superior to the commercial variety. You most likely to be served homemade barley water at most kopitiams (coffeeshops) in Singapore when you ordered "Ee bee chui"

Home made barley water is made by cooking pearl barley at the ratio of ten parts of water to one part of pearl barley, then slowly simmered until the grain is very soft then finished in a number of ways. There are recipes that call for the water to be strained after reducing the liquid, after letting the mixture stand for several hours to allow the barley to really soften or strain as soon as the liquid is cooled.

Barley Water with Candied Winter Melon Recipe:

Ingredients:

200g pearl barley
100g candied winter melon (optional)
150g rock sugar
2litres water
In a large saucepan, bring all the ingredient to a boil over medium heat. Lower the heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Cool slightly before straining. Serve warm or chilled.

Our Glen Dale Elizabeth turns 50

Our grand 50 year old azalea bush Glen Dale 'Elizabeth' outside our bay window puts out a spectacular display of spring flowers at this time of the year. This grand old lady would have to be one of the most colourful small Autumn to Spring flowering shrubs. Although her blooming period in spring is restricted to a month or less, she is in fact a flowering shrub for all seasons. In winter this evergreen azaleas light up a lush green area of the garden. In spring, the vivid display produced by her is showy and placed her among the most decorative shrubs for the home garden and parks; throughout the summer and fall the leaves again add a pleasing, deep green color to the garden. Some deciduous varieties show up the warm autumn tints of the leaves and are particularly attractive with a background of evergreen plants in the garden before the leaves drop.




Although our grand old lady likes to differ from her cousin Rhododendron, the two were classified in the same genus of Rhododendron by the botanists, but many gardeners still treating them as if they were two separate types of plants. All her cousins Rhododendrons are mainly evergreen, whereas she and her siblings are mostly deciduous except for two popular groups the Kurume and Indica azaleas are evergreen. The plants are mainly native to the Northern Hemisphere, although some species do occur in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea and one rhododendron is native to the rainforest of northern Queensland.


Azalea shrubs are easily propagated and increased by taking a cutting about 2.5 cm long and placing the cut end about 50mm deep in sand. Roots on azalea plants can form within two weeks during late spring, and the plant may grow another foot tall before it is ready to be planted permanently in your yard. As azaleas range in size from tree like giants to prostrate dwarfs, decide the space you have to fill before you plant your shrubs.

Chinese Pretzels are good to Dunk...

These round twisted pretzels are usually coated with hard sugar icing which I have omitted with a valid reason, make ideal snack with drinks and are especially good to dunk in a cup of coffee or tea such as I like to do with other biscuits. I usually like to dunk my biscuits in my coffee. If you are into the habit of dunking, you will agree with me that it is quite an art after all. It requires the perfect timing and skill from the time you dunk the biscuit into your drink and lifting up without breaking to put it into your mouth. Biscuit dunkers face much more of a challenge. If recent market research is to be believed, one biscuit dunk in every five ends in disaster, with the dunker fishing around in the bottom of the cup for the soggy remains. The problem for serious biscuit dunkers is that hot tea or coffee dissolves the sugar, melts the fat and swells and softens the starch grains in the biscuit. The wetted biscuit eventually collapses under its own weight.
(Source BBC News)
Scientists have finally explained the perfect way to dunk a biscuit. People have long had to endure lumpy tea when their favourite nibble disintegrates to form a grey sludge at the bottom of the mug. Only a scientist could dunk like this
Now researchers from the University of Bristol in the west of England have published the mathematical formula that governs the whole process. Their work is set to revolutionise tea and coffee breaks the world over, especially when a list of recommended dunking times is published.
BBC Science Correspondent Pallab Ghosh: Different biscuits have different dunking times The study reveals precisely why we are drawn to dunking - it seems more of the flavour of the biscuit is released into our mouths if it has first been dunked in a hot drink. The Bristol team calculate that up to 10 times more flavour is released this way than if the biscuit is eaten dry.
Their two-month investigation has also established the best strategy for dunking chocolate biscuits. The "flat-on" approach requires the nibble to be immersed biscuit side down.
This minimises "chocolate bleed" into the tea or coffee and keeps the coating rigid enough to prevent the biscuit from breaking in half. The team acknowledge this technique requires a degree of skill on the part of the dunker and have therefore designed a prototype dunking holder to help the less dexterous.
Dr Len Fisher, who led the research, said a biscuit could be viewed as lumps of starch glued together by sugar. When the hot tea or coffee enters the pores in the biscuit, he explained, the sugar melts and the structure becomes unstable. "You have got a race between the dissolving of the sugar and your biscuit falling apart and a swelling of the starch grains so that they stick together, giving you a biscuit which is purely starch but rather softer than what you started with," he said. "As with most things in physics, we can write equations which govern this."
Dunk with confidence with my homemade pretzels.

Chinese Pretzels Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2/3 cup icing sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 tsp baking soda
1 egg
2 tbsp water
6 cups oil





Sift flour, sugar, salt and baking soda twice, add egg, water and mix into a soft dough; if dough is too dry add water accordingly, knead dough until smooth. Cover dough with a cling wrap and let it sits for 30 minutes. Roll dough into 3mm thick and cut into 24 strips. Take each piece and lightly stretch by keeping other end of dough firmly pressed on the table.; twist dough like a rope and bring both ends meet to form a circle and twist again. Heat oil for deep frying pretzels over medium heat for 3-4 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towel.

Is this the Spinach that Popeye the Sailor eats?

While it is perfectly true that this shining green vegetable with ribbed white veins leaves and stems that range from white to yellow and red has a string of names to confuse you, it is full of vitamins and minerals and therefore extremely good for you. Siverbeet also known as Swiss chard, Seakale beet, Crab beet, Perpetual Spinach, Spinach beet and Mangold are available in the green groceries and supermarkets all year round.To add to your confusion, silverbeet is often called spinach in New South Wales and Queensland. Although they are both from the same plant family - Amaranthaceae, they are very different in texture and taste. Unlike the spinach which has a refined and more delicate flavour, it has an earthy flavour (especially in the stalks which I normally discard in my cooking). Interestingly, in Australia, the leaves are valued while the Mediterranean and European cooks value the stalks. In fact, the leaves are often discard and used as a folder. If you are doing a sustainable gardening in your space-poor backyard you will find that it is not called "perpetual spinach" without a good reason. The leaves can be picked or cut continuously over time, is a far better option than "once off " crops. Thus the continuous harvest of this vegetable plant ensures your family with a steady supply of folate, fibre and vitamins and saves you money and time. Here is a simple silverbeet dish with a Chinese twist.






Sherried Silverbeet with Garlic and Oyster Sauce:

1 bunch silverbeet
2 cloves garlic minced
2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp soya sauce
2 tbsp dry sherry or rice wine
1 tsp sugar
1 chicken stock cube
2 tbsp oil
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp cornflour
Salt and Pepper

Wash silverbeet, shake off excess water and remove leaves from stalk and cut leaves into 5cm slices. Heat wok high heat and add oil, add garlic and saute until golden brown. Add silverbeet leaves and toss until wilted.
Combine water with crumbled stock cube, soya sauce, oyster sauce, dry sherry and cornflour, mix well and pour into silverbeet and toss until mixture is boiling.Cover and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.