BBQ Baby Octopus salad

I went up to Brisbane in November for my sister's graduation. Our family had dinner at a casual seafood bbq restaurant - I can't remember the name. But they had the best BBQ octopus salad - the octopus was very tender.

My dad knew the chef so he called him up a few days later and asked for the recipe. It turns out the secret ingredient is... kiwi fruit.

First you take baby octopus that has been cleaned, and you marinate it with kiwi fruit that has been pulped. I use about 3 kiwi fruits for 600g of bbq octopus. Just put the octopus in a bowl, spoon out the kiwi fruit, mash the kiwi flesh with your fingers and mix well with the octopus. For the size of baby octopus, don't leave it for longer than 30 minutes otherwise the octopus starts to disintegrate. The chef said it is also used on steaks.

I did a search on kiwi fruit and according to the Food Coach and Nudie websites raw kiwifruit is rich in the protein-dissolving enzyme actinidin which is a natural meat tenderizer.



The next part is quite messy. After the kiwi fruit has done its magic, you have to rinse the octopus and pat dry. Then marinate as normal. I like putting it in some olive oil, garlic, oregano, smoky paprika and a splash of red wine vinegar.

Throw it on the barbeque and serve with some mixed salad leaves.

Try it, it really works!

Masala Dosa for brekky

On a recent trip to Bangalore, India for work, I had a special dish called masala dosa for breakfast. I've only ever had it as an appetiser in indian restaurants in Sydney. I didn't know it was a breakfast dish. I found it wasn't served as part of the hotel buffet as it has to be made fresh. You can however order it for breakfast which is what I did.

Dosa is like a very thin crispy crepe made from a batter of finely ground rice and urad bean blended with water.

A masala dosa is a normal dosa stuffed with lightly cooked filling of potatoes, fried onions and spices.

It is served with various accompaniments such as chutneys and sambar - a pea and vegetable stew or chowder based on a broth made with tamarind and dal.

The masala dosa I had above is served with sambar (in the bowl) and some wet chutneys (coriander and tomato).

Lunch at Danks Street Depot

We caught up with a good friend of ours for brunch at Danks Street Depot. I wanted to try out their lunch menu, in particular, the Chicken Liver Parfait. My friend had never been so I didn't want her to miss out on the staples - truffled eggs or the poached eggs with bacon hash. Luckily they serve both on their lunch menu (due to popular demand).

My friend had the truffled eggs (unfortunately I didn't get a shot of it) while I had an instant heart-attack due to the chicken liver parfait. Hubby had the poached eggs with bacon hash.

The chicken liver parfait was very good but very rich. It has a layer of butter to preserve it, served with sourdough toast and caramelised onions. I also ordered a green salad which did wonders to cut through the richness of the livers.

Would I order it again to have as a main? Absolutely, but only after I have lost a few kgs from the first eating!

We *heart* Bison

We checked the Bison homepage today to see if our tulip bowls can go in the dishwasher. According to the Caring for your bison instructions:

Genuine Bison ceramics are lead-free and food-safe. They can be used in the oven, microwave and dishwasher.

Sweet!

(Never mind that we've always hand-washed the damn things since purchase!)

Yummy banoffee goodness

Feeling particularly seedy we had lunch at a Pho shop in Newtown (too hung-over to remember the name). This was just the ticket to making us feel a whole lot better. So much better in fact that we decided we'd treat ourselves to cake and coffee at Mickey's (also at Newtown).

After all, we were so good for having something healthy for lunch... right?

This is what we got:

Mmmmmm Banoffee pie..... I dream about this pie.

Bombay Chicken salad

Friends from work introduced me to Saladworks on Hunter street in the Sydney CBD. It was quite confusing if you didn't know the drill. You select your salad leaves (med or large), they have english spinach, iceberg, mixed etc. You then take this to the counter and either order from their suggested salad selections or make up your own.

I opted for one of the recommended salads (selecting the salad leaves was daunting enough let along having to select ingredients to build my own) - a Bombay chicken salad. Their website is no longer working but from memory it had bombay chicken, chick peas, raisins, corn kernels, crunchy noodle things and eggplant.

It was really yummy so I tried to recreate it at home. This is the result:

We got some chicken breasts, sliced them up and marinated it in some Pataks jar marinade (I think it's Chicken Tikka). The chicken was then barbequed and tossed with mixed leaves, corn, danish fetta, chickpeas and raisins. It was not the same without the crispy noodle thingies but still pretty yummy for a mid-week dinner.

Seared tuna pasta

This is another dish that I've recreated based on a dish that I had eating out.

Last year, in preparation for my wedding, a friend and I were in Double Bay shopping for my wedding gown. We had a lunch at a cafe that was close to her home. It was one of those hole in the wall places that had mostly pre-made gourmet sandwiches but they also had a range of salads and other meals. I selected the seared tuna with spaghetti. It was a really nice dish, served cold, and a good blend of tastes - seared tuna, capers and rocket.

And my efforts at home:

Seared Tuna pasta:

Tuna steak, approx 200g per person
Good handful of rocket washed
1/2 Tbs of capers per person
Spaghetti (approx 80g per person)
2 Tbs of lemon juice
2 Tbs of extra virgin olive oil (the best you have - this will be used in the dressing)
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Put about 1tbs of olive oil in a shallow dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Rub the tuna steak in this mix (both sides of the steak).

Make the dressing by mixing lemon juice with extra virgin olive oil. Usually the quantity is 1 juice to 2 parts olive oil but I find this too oily. You can just do this to taste but I find a 1 to 1 quantity works well. Get the right consistency by either putting in a small jar and shaking or using a small whisk to mix.

Start your pasta cooking (my spaghetti takes about 8 mins).

When the pasta has about 6 min left, sear tuna in a hot non-stick fry pan. After about 2-3min, flip it and sear the other side. Cooking time will depend on how rare you want your tuna.

Slice the tuna and mix with drained spaghetti, washed rocket, capers and dressing (if the dressing has split, just whisk again before tossing with the rest of the ingredients).

Can be served hot or cold.

Caramelised onion tart

My love for quiche and tarts started from when I made a Quiche Lorraine in my high school home economics class. I'd never tasted anything like it compared to my native Filipino cuisine - I knew I was hooked.

Since then I've made various types but my favourite would have to be a filling of caramelised onion and goats cheese. For this tart, I will take the time to make a shortcrust base, blind-baked, to make it extra special. As you can see I'm quite generous with the goats cheese.