The nightshade family

This fruit is called physalis and the fruit belongs to the nightshade family, that fact was the most interesting thing I found out about them. Once you know they are related to tomatoes, the similarity is obvious but they are fragrant, like perfume.

I was out at dinner with friends, and one of these were sitting atop her ice-cream.  What followed was a discussion in Swedish that I couldn't follow, as they tried to figure out the English word for the fruit.

Then I saw them in my local grocery store, for some reason, (nonsensically as so few food items are) I decided the fruit was local.

It is strange and wonderful to find a fruit I have never seen before.

Well, until my mind wanders into all the information that has been the topic of so much news with regards to globalization, and its impact on food production.

This made me think about Tasmania versus Sweden.  Tasmania smugly can exist on food produced on the island, with tropical foods (like physalis) coming from Queensland.  But Sweden would be sadly lacking in variety if the country could not import foods.  Of all the fruits and vegetables in our store, only the potatoes and strawberries had been grown in Sweden.  

What comprises a moral stance in one country can not often be applied to another country.  Why am I bothering to think about all this?  Probably because Zok's idea to have a road trip through Scotland was booked during the high season, of a record breaking year for tourism in that country.

I spent three days, and contacted over forty places to find us five places to sleep and none of the places were even in my top twenty choices.

I would say the say to see Scotland is to pick an area, book a cute cabin/lighthouse/farmstead for an entire week and explore from there.

Also most take bookings from Saturday to Saturday so you might want to factor that in.  We will be doing some back tracking on our driving, but all of the scenery on the web seems so pretty that I don't think this will be a problem.

I also am lamenting all my cute, good, hiking clothing I have amassed- in Tasmania.  None of which is here.

Of course when I get a photo of Nessie, I will be so rich that I can just buy whatever clothing I want.

Fried Noodles

One of the things that is great about a person who likes to cook, and is open to at least the idea
of a recipe, is that there is always some new dish to try out. This way a meal can be dictated by a vegetable in season, or items in the kitchen that need to be used, or just foods that haven't been in dietary rotation for awhile.

Zok finds this dish bland, I say the taste is subtle and good.
Zok makes up some spicy chicken pieces to add on top of his meal which he thinks 'fixes' the dish.
Importantly, this needs good, fresh Hokkien noodles.

2 tbl oil
2 tsp sesame oil
4 spring onions, chopped
2 gloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp finely chopped red chillies
150g (4 3/4oz) fresh firm tofu, cut into cubes
100g mushrooms (of your choice) we used Shitake
and added in some button mushrooms that needed to be used up
1 red capsicum, cut into thin strips
2 tbl water
2 tbl shoshoyu (soy sauce)
2 tbl cooking sake
2 tsp sugar
300g (9 2/3 oz) packet Hokkien noodles

Lightly fry your cubed tofu and set aside, on paper towels.
Combine your oils in a small bowl. Heat half the oil mixture in your wok, over medium high heat. Add the spring onion, and garlic and stir fry quickly (about a minute).
Add the chillies, and stir for a minute, add in your tofu and stir to coat, remove all and set aside.
Add the remaining oil to the wok, add vegetables and stir-fry until crisp.
Add water, shoshoyu, sugar and noodles to the pan- (Zok actually cooks up his noodles first when he does the tofu, and then adds them back in at the very end- I however, follow this recipe as specified).
Toss gently to coat the noodles- Cover and steam for five minutes; then toss well.
Add the tofu mixture back in and toss for 3 minutes-
Serve!

Ode to the Noodle Ranch

Once upon another life time, I chose to eat many a meal at a place called 'The Noodle Ranch' located in a neighborhood called 'Belltown' in Seattle, Washington. This was a life when I rarely cooked anything more complicated than fancy beer nuts (chili-carmelized blanched almonds for poker nights). I lived in a land of late night dining, take away, and (!) delivery foods.

I never thought of myself as a curry eater. But my friend Monte convinced me to try this 'light' variety, the green curry.
Silken tofu cubes, broccoli, and potatoes, in spices and green curry with a side of sticky white rice.
What is not to love?
But this was a love lost when I moved away from the area.
Until Zok decided he could figure it out- and he did.
Here you go: Curry for 2 plus left overs, as created by Zok.

1 medium brown onion, diced.
1 clove of garlic finely diced.
3-4 medium potatoes- such as a Kennebec or the yellow skinned American potato- peeled and cut into small cubes
A fair sized Broccoli cut into bite sized pieces
Silken tofu cut into bite sized cubes
16 oz of Coconut Cream
32 oz of vegetable stock (made from the cube and water)
1 tsp peanut oil
Fresh kaffir lime leaves about 4 thinly sliced, leaf only not center stem/vein
(if you live nearby we have a kaffir lime tree so if you need leaves just ask)
Zest of half of one lime
Juice from the half-lime
2 tbls palm sugar
Clove of garlic (diced)
One small red chili no seeds
5 tbls of fish sauce
2 tbl of green curry paste
* you can leave out the chilli and/or you can add in mushrooms
Rice for 2 people

First-
Peel, cut potatoes and steam until tender but not fully cooked, put aside.

*Make a sauce to set aside by taking the sliced kaffir leaves, lime juice, lime zest, chopped clove of garlic, fish sauce and grated palm sugar and chilli if desired, mix to dissolve sugar

Take the teaspoon of peanut oil, and heat in wok until slightly smoking, then add onion, and one clove of garlic- stir ingredients to coat then add in the 2 tbl. of green curry paste and sauté all for a couple of minutes mixing well.

Add potato to wok, mix well.
Add in vegetable stock, stir well
Add in coconut cream, stir well
Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 10 minutes
Add broccoli and tofu and mushrooms (if desired)
Simmer all for a few minutes
Add Sauce
Lightly stir (lightly to avoid breaking up the tofu cubes)
Simmer until condensed about 15 to 30 minutes-
+This is a good time while this simmers to turn on your rice cooker.
++I don't know the substitution for fish sauce- but of course this is not strictly vegetarian to use and will need to be substituted if you are cooking for a strict vegetarian, this is okay if they are only an aquatarian.

Yum!

Twice Baked Pizza

The day our local pizza delivery shop closed was a sad, sad, day for me.
The borough of Kingston is not exactly teeming with 'takeaway' food options. Zok rose to the challenge and started making pizza from scratch. With a bit of help from our friend Liz.

Getting the yeast to activate, and the temperature correct for a good, fluffy, dough is the only tricky part of this meal.
Zok says that the he prefers the 'instant, dried' yeast, which we keep in our refrigerator. He uses our electric kettle to boil water, and uses cold tap water in a measuring cup to bring the water up to 'temperate', warm not hot.
The yeast when activating is visible to the eye.

Zok makes pizza sauce whenever tomatoes are ripe in the garden, or on sale.
We keep those in the freezer.
Our secret is that we twice bake our crust- the first time we lightly brush oil on the pizza base, and sprinkle the top with garlic salt and herbs.
After they fluff up and toast up in the oven we add the tomato sauce and whatever toppings we want.
Zok used his pizza to test out four salamis from our new favorite Italian Deli.
I pretty much stick to pineapple with mozzarella and provolone cheeses.

I suggest buying pizza tins at a catering store. I have always found bargains and hard to find items (remember when muddler was a foreign word?) at catering stores, and there always seems to be one, large city or small.
The tins have to be treated with oil, and it is a good habit to always put a small amount of oil on them before storing them away.

I suppose pizza is a simple dish, and often overlooked in favor of ordering this item delivered. But this is a good meal to make with kids, or for easy entertaining.

2 thick crust pizzas- 10 inch pizza tins (because everyone like cold pizza the day after)

3.5 cups of plain flour (not self rising)
Tsp. salt
Tbl. caster sugar
8 grams of dry yeast to one cup of warm water
Mix all in your mixer or by hand until light and fluffy
(Zok says to do this until you think you are done then mix another 3 minutes)
Add more warm water or flour as required
Put the ball of dough in a lightly oiled large bowl, roll the dough around to lightly coat the dough this ensures that the dough doesn't dry out while rising
cover with a towel - about 90 minutes.

Sauce (for about 8 pizzas)
Render down about 2 kilos (4.5 lb) of tomatoes
Zok flash boils the tomatoes, then removes the skins
Then cook all of them up until well rendered, then he uses a sieve to remove the seeds
Then re-cooks the tomatoes almost to a paste
Add herbs (to taste) We use what we have in hand from garden, rosemary, parsley, oregano, basil, garlic all finely chopped, cook these all up a bit more.
The sauce keeps for ages (2-3 months). We label each batch to keep them straight.

"I get too hungry for dinner at eight..."

I am going to post a month of recipes or what I like to think of as 'dinner'.
I will try to talk the chef into certain favorite recipes I want to share.
Feel free to ask questions, or request a favorite dish.

Mee Goreng
*Zok believes that only fresh Hokkien Noodles are acceptable when making this simple dish.
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
1 large onion (brown is best)
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 red chillies (or one large depending on how your garden grew)
seeded, and finely chopped (the seeds can be added back in if you desire a high 'hot spicy' rating on your food).
2 cm (3/4 in) piece of fresh ginger (Zok says you can switch this out for fresh galangal)
2 tablespoons oil (one when tossing the noodles, one when cooking up the rest of the ingredients in the wok)
1 large carrot, cut into matchsticks
Deep fry tofu squares (.5 lb of firm tofu), cut in half to make triangles
3 tablespoons each of kecap manis, soy sauce, tomato sauce (this is increased due to the fact that we are cooking with tofu when normally this dish would have raw prawn meat (a pound).
Optionally a person could also add 8 oz. of rump steak finely sliced. The meat (ahh poor fishes what did they ever do to you?) would be added in place of when the tofu is added.

Combine the chopped onion, garlic, chillies and ginger (or galangal) in a small food processor or mortar and pestle. Set aside.
Heat 1 tbl. spoon oil (Zok uses peanut oil) in wok (large is best); stir fry the noodles until plump and warmed through (Zok makes them a wee bit burnt on some of the noodles, they are the tastiest ones), Place noodles in covered serving bowl to keep warm.

Add another teaspoon of oil to wok and stir fry the paste until golden, add your carrots, stir-fry quickly 2 minutes, add in tofu, 2 minutes (or until tofu, carrots and paste are nice and mixed)-
Add in the kecap manis, soy, and tomato sauces - wait until this all reduces, as you work your wok technique prowess.

We divide the noodles as desired, and then dish out the amount of tasty goodness on top of these noodles.
Zok adds spring onion as a garnish, Colleen does not.

*kecap manis can be found in most asian grocers, and is a sort of sweet, thick soy sauce
** this dish goes nicely with Sapporo Beer
***Zok mentioned that he actually uses a bit more tofu because somebody, steals pieces when somebody is too hungry to wait for the food to cook.