sushi deconstruction

So I think this will be the last gourmet post for the week, back to some plain fare for the next few days. Tonight's taste sensation was sushi for the kids and sushi de-constructed for the adults.

recipe: sushi rice salad
source: delicious. November 2011

outer suburbia mods: swapped
- sesame seeds for nigella seeds (!?!?!)
- freshly podded peas for edamame beans
- smoked salmon and prawns for sashimi grade salmon

the kid's sushi was quickly de-constructed too :-)

verdict: I prefer sushi but this is heaps less fiddly. Plus it might be more interesting if I had all the right ingredients....

PS what am I going to do with the rest of my bunch of radishes????

the big pizza cook-off: authentico vs delicious.

We've been making our own pizzas for awhile now. But we just keep coming back to a pizza with a basic napolitana sauce, salami, ham, mushrooms, capsicum, olives and pizza cheese. So it's stiff competition but the following pizza looked so yummy I thought we'd try something new.

Here's old faithful which Giggi and Badger were happy to eat.

The challenger:
recipe: John Wilson's taleggio & thyme pizza
source: delicious., November 2011

mods: way too much oil and cheese in the recipe, although I did tear the cheese too small. Also I couldn't find any taleggio so I went with another soft washed-rind cheese

verdict: we all preferred the original... although I do think I should give it another go with bigger chunks of the cheese...

BTW still going strong with the Norved's dough recipe. And we're loving the pizza stone for extra crispy pizza.

delicious. adventures part 2

I've been looking forward to trying this recipe for awhile but something our suburb lacks is a fish shop. Anyway, I noticed that Coles sold mussels so I thought I'd give it a go. It was fortunate that I checked with Stephanie Alexander (the cooks companion) before starting the preparation otherwise I might have poisoned us all or thrown out mussels that were still alive.

preperation: de-bearding the mussels was pretty self evident. Then while soaking in cold water you need to check if any of the mussels have already died - if any of the shells are already open. But you need to tap on the shell first to see if it will close in which case you can keep it. I think I had to discard 4 or 5 at this stage. Then after they're cooked, take out all the mussels that have opened, but give the ones that are still closed another 5 minutes or so - by which stage we only had to turf 1.... Anyway, the recipe didn't have any of this info, so I'm glad I checked...

recipe: mussels and cherry tomato risotto
you can find the recipe on-line here
source: delicious. August 2011

verdict: Giggi was happy to try a mussel (particularly after having helped me de-beard and tap them in the preparation) and declared that he liked them. Badger ate the risotto so I was happy with that.

I loved it. The mussels were delicious and it was nice to eat a risotto that wasn't cheesy. It was a little more healthy than the average risotto as well. As an oven risotto I thought it worked really well and wasn't very labour intensive at all.

Here's a close up of the beautiful locally grown produce: the truss tomatoes and the parsley are from market.

A dinner winner for everyone

I was fortunate enough to receive a subscription of delicious. magazine for my birthday this year. But I must admit that I haven't been making full use of this wonderful gift. So far all we'd done was the Christmas in July menu from the June edition (which was fantastic by the way, especially the coleslaw and the pork roast stuffing).

So now I'm intending to make amends and get cracking on some of the great recipes but, and here's the kicker, also making them successful for the whole family. And tonight's attempt was a winner.

Recipe: Jill Dupleix's hot and sour noodle soup with minced chicken

Source: delicious. July 2011.

Loved the hot and sour flavours, all balanced nicely. Also added more noodles and prawns than the recipe suggested.

Mini Mods: Gigi and Badger had pan fried prawns and chicken meatballs (I added bread crumbs and tomato sauce to the chicken mince), rice noodles and broccolini.

Verdict: eaten by all, happy days :)