So I found this lovely copper pan, with brass fittings, and thought it would be great to cook omelettes. Since copper distributes heat so evenly, it would be ideal. I invented this weirdly wonderful meal because I found this pan, just as I sometimes concoct dishes based on a specific wine in mind.
Although I have called this smoked oyster omelette, it is really the silken egg tofu that imparts a particularly unique texture. In fact, you could omit the oysters in you wish.
Ingredients
- Smoked oysters
- Silken egg tofu (usually in a vacuum-sealed cylindrical plastic wrapper)
- Mushroom
- Egg
- Milk
- Garlic
- White onion
- Black pepper (coarse ground)
- Sea-salt (coarse ground)
- Za'atar
- Parsley
- Celery
- Capsicum
Preparation
Sauté finely chopped garlic and onions in butter in a large fry-pan. Once they begin to turn golden brown, remove from pan. Place on base of copper pan, spreading them evenly.
While fry-pan is still hot, toss in sliced mushrooms and sauté quickly until nicely brown. Then remove and place aside.
Slice half a block of silken egg tofu into pieces about 1 to 2 cm thick. Gently place in fry-pan and slowly cook until bottom surface turns golden. Turn over and do likewise. Remove from pan and place with mushrooms.
In a bowl, whisk eggs, gently adding milk while doing so. Break remaining half of tofu block into very small pieces then add to egg-milk mixture. Keep whisking until tofu-egg-milk mixture is light and frothy. Add smoked oysters, followed by black pepper and sea-salt to taste. Pour contents into copper pan and spread ingredients evenly. Heat pan gently over low-to-medium heat until bottom of omelette begins to brown.
Place sautéed mushrooms over top of omelette, followed by fried tofu pieces and arrange nicely. Sprinkle a dash of za'atar, finely chopped parsley, celery and capsicums.
Place entire copper pan into pre-heated oven and bake omelette briefly until it turns completely golden brown.
To Serve
Remove from oven, allow to cool slightly and serve meal in the pan!
Complement with a light, zesty white wine.
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Beer batter is light and crisp. It is very easy to prepare; spices can be added to it to give it greater complexity. When it is fried, it seems much less oily than normal batter.
Ingredients
- Potato
- Carrot
- Onion
- Capsicum
- Long beans
- Broccoli
- Cup mushroom
- Chili (red and/or green)
- Japanese tofu (white or yellow; firm)
- Olive oil
- Flour
- Egg
- Beer
- Za'atar
- Black pepper (coarsely cracked)
- Sea-salt
Preparation
Beat egg in a bowl then add flour and mix. Keep adding flour until a very thick pasty (dough-like) consistency is reached. Then pour in beer, very little at a time so that it froths and mix thoroughly. The beer will thin the mix; if it gets too thin, sprinkle more flour while mixing until it is viscous enough to nicely coat a spatula without dripping. Add za'atar, black pepper and salt to taste.
Slice vegetables into chunky pieces about 5 cm by 1 - 2 cm each.
Boil water in a saucepan and cook slices of potatoes and carrots. Peel a few small cloves of garlic and boil them as well. Don't overcook or they will become too soft. Once ready, allow to cool then dip them in batter mix.
Heat olive oil in a fry-pan. You'll only need just enough oil to cover base of pan.
Gently place battered potatoes and carrots in simmering hot oil. Allow bottom to brown then turn over and brown other side. When ready, remove from pan and place on a plate lined with paper towel to absorb the excess oil.
Do likewise for other vegetables, cooking them in small portions without overcrowding.
As for mushroom: stuff small pieces of boiled garlic cloves in between veil and stem then dip entire mushroom in batter. Cut protruding stem down so that it is level with veil. If mushroom is large (over 5 cm in diameter), ensure that there is enough oil in which to immerse it (otherwise tilt pan at an angle so as to allow more oil to cover mushroom). Also, ensure that the oil is hot enough to quickly brown the batter covering the mushroom into a thin crust without allowing the moisture inside it to escape, thus sealing its flavour.
Japanese tofu is easily obtained in blocks the size of a block of butter with a cross section of around 5 cm x 4 cm. Slice block into pieces about 1 cm thick. Allow to drip dry, then gently immerse in batter completely before placing into fry-pan. You'll need a flat spatula to lift and turn over the tofu to brown both sides. When golden brown, remove and place on plate with other cooked vegetables.
To Serve
This makes a complete and balanced meal on its own. A dipping sauce such as mild chili or sweet chili makes a good accompaniment. Or yogurt chutney. Otherwise, just have it plain as the spiced beer batter is already delicately tasty!
Complement with a pale ale, or if wine is preferred, a light Frascati or Muscadet.
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Next> Recipe #21: Grilled Ciabatta with truffle paste & extra virgin olive oil
Here I am again, with my favourite Dutch oven, (one of my new best friends), inventing another stew: osso bucco with a twist.
Conventional Italian osso bucco is stewed in white wine; I have opted for red. A strong robust red. To add a richness of texture and complexity of flavour, I also added pork spare ribs. Then to balance the oiliness of the pork, I included Szechuan pepper and fennel. The result, a rather complex dish that is neither overpowering nor over-the-top. Instead, gentle stewing in a Dutch oven makes it simultaneously complex *and* subtle, and the end result is something so upliftingly delightful that you'd never guess what went into it...
Ingredients
- Osso bucco cuts
- Pork spare ribs
- Bacon
- Red wine ( a young robust Bordeaux or powerful northern Rhone)
- Beef stock
- Szechuan pepper
- Fennel
- Carrot
- Potato
- Celery
- Parsnip
- Red capsicum
- Concentrated tomato paste
- Bouquet garni
- Oregano
- Whole garlic
- Onion
- Mushroom
- Sea-salt
- Black pepper
Preparation
Prepare meat in the same way as in Recipe #15.
Heat a small amount of olive oil in casserole and add sliced bacon. Sauté until bacon turns golden brown.
Move bacon pieces to side of casserole, or if there isn't enough space, remove them and place aside. Add pork spare ribs, sliced into pieces around 2 - 3 cm wide, and sauté until they begin to brown. If necessary, dry them with paper towel; otherwise they won't brown properly.
Remove pork spare ribs from casserole then add osso bucco. As with the pork, make sure they're dry and sauté them until they brown evenly.
Next, remove beef and add chopped carrots, celery, parsnip, potatoes, fennel, capsicums and onions then sauté in similar manner.
When vegetables are ready, combine with bacon, pork and osso bucco and stir ingredients in casserole over low heat, adding sea-salt and black pepper to taste.
Unlike Recipe #15, baking in flour is omitted.
Simmer ingredients very gently while adding a very generous amount of red wine, followed by beef stock. Ensure that wine totally immerses ingredients (but not by too much). Then place a sachet of bouquet garni & oregano. Add a generous amount of Szechuan peppers; however, if it is your first time cooking with them, start with a little to see how it suits your palate.
Continue to simmer then place covered casserole in pre-heated oven at low- to medium heat for 2 to 3 hours. Check regularly to ensure that it is simmering very gently and doesn't overheat.
If necessary, remove casserole from oven and gently stir ingredients.
While waiting for meat to stew, prepare mushrooms and sliced onions. Dry them thoroughly then sauté in butter until golden brown. Place aside when ready.
To Serve
When stew in casserole is ready, remove from oven, place on stove-top, over a very low heat. Extract bouquet garni, and if whole bulb of garlic is used, squeeze it before removing what's left of the bulb from the stew. Add mushrooms and sliced onions and stir in gently.
Garnish with chopped spring onions and parsley then serve with buttered pasta or bread slices pan-fried in concentrated truffle oil.
Complement with a red Bordeaux or northern Rhone, similar to what was used in cooking.
Leftover stew, if any, can be kept refrigerated then re-heated before eating. It might be necessary to add a little water and simmer very gently over a low heat. The ingredients will become more concentrated and in fact improve in flavour when kept overnight.
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Next> Recipe #17: Truffled barramundi sautéed in olive oil on macaroni
I wish I had a better picture of this; it was incredibly difficult to photograph.
Rainbow trout is like a mild version of salmon; trout and salmon share similarities in the colour and texture of the flesh, the richness of flavour, and the incredible ease with which to cook in a variety of ways.
A small trout is inexpensive, and when cooked whole, is very easy to serve and de-bone, leaving a lovely pink, rich, succulent flesh that tastes great on its own. Its skin is also very tasty, especially when baked to a lovely golden brown crispness.
Ingredients
- Whole rainbow trout
- Fresh mushroom
- Garlic
- White onion
- Mild to hot chili (Mexican is ideal)
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Za'atar
- Sea-salt
- Coarse ground black pepper
- Parsley
Preparation
Rinse whole trout in salt water, dry thoroughly, then sprinkle and rub some salt over skin and allow to stand for at least half an hour.
Prepare chopped chili, garlic, onion and mushrooms. Stuff ingredients into fish and place over aluminium foil (triple layer) that's been shaped to envelop entire fish. Spread excess filling around fish. Add za'atar, sea-salt and black pepper to taste.
Place fish in foil on a tray in a pre-heated oven and bake for at least half an hour or until it turns golden brown. By now, the aromas of the garlic and onions would fill the oven and you know the fish is cooked.
To Serve
Remove fish in foil from oven and place on a heat-resistant plate. Serve with a simple pasta combining left-over ingredients quickly pan-fried with vegetables and garnish with parsley.
Complement with a zesty Marlborough (New Zealand) Sauvignon Blanc or a mildly oaked Chardonnay.
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I love pork, so it is unusual that my first pork recipe comes at #9 in this blog. Nevertheless, here it is: pork prepared in a way that I have never done before.
The spices are fragrant, aromatic and uplifting: dukkah is an Egyptian spice blend, quite easily obtainable from spice shops; za'atar is Middle-Eastern, perhaps less easy to find in some places, although I think it is readily found if you browse the internet. (There are even recipes to make it.) I bought mine from Oxfam.
I don't know what inspired me to come up with this recipe; it was quite spontaneous. Pork is a very amicable meat, as I would put it, as it goes well with almost anything. It isn't overpowering in flavour, and quite easy to cook in a variety of ways. Depending on how it is cooked and the spices used, it can easily suit all sorts of palates, ranging from extremely spicy or sumptuously rich on one end, to mild and subtle on the other.
Ingredients
- Pork medallions
- Dukkah
- Za'atar
- Basil
- Rosemary
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
- Chili flakes
Preparation
Pre-season pork medallions by rubbing olive oil, and salt, followed by a modest amount of dukkah and za'atar. If you've never tried these spices before, start with just a little to get a sense of their flavours and aromas. Allow to sit for a few hours.
Pre-heat griller and when it is hot enough, place pork medallions. I prefer a grilling pan with ridges so that excess juices do not drain away but collect beneath the ridges.
Place rosemary leaves on medallions as they cook and allow pork to turn golden with brown grill lines. Then turn over and allow other side to cook.
When pork is almost fully cooked, toss basil into pan, then quickly remove. Be careful that they aren't overcooked.
To serve
Place pork medallions in serving plate, top with basil, a sprinkle of chili flakes and seal-salt to taste. Then pour excess juice collected from grilling pan. Add more fresh rosemary leaves if desired and garnish with fresh chopped parsley.
Complement with a light, earthy, aromatic white, such as Gerwutztraminer. Or if you prefer a little contrast, a complex White Burgundy would do well.
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Next> Recipe #10: Oreo Dory pan-fried with 16 y.o. rare old tawny port
