The art of the perfect pad thai

Pad Thai epitomizes all that is good about Thai food – fast, fresh, vibrant in taste and in colour, and when done well a little sweet, a little spicy, a little sour and all these epic flavour sensations zinging round your mouth. This dish or officially phat thai should not be taken lightly. When done well, it is a meal of soul restoring, life fortifying proportions. Done badly and its your edible worst nightmare. This dish is loved in Thailand as much as it is all over the world and I agree with anyone who argues that it is a true signpost of a kitchen – get the pad thai right and you’ve got people who can cook. I like to keep the majority of elements separate –savoury mix-ins so you can control the sweet, sour, nut and heat flavour profiles to your liking. You can replace the fresh prawns with chicken but if you use prawns, make sure you keep the tails – nothing better than a built in handle for your food. I learnt this dish from many months spent cooking under chef tutelage in Thailand so here are some failsafe tips from my pad thai loving belly to yours.

- Make sure you soak your noodles in room temperature water for two hours for optimum texture – you want to be able to wrap the noodles around your finger. This soaking also helps to stop the noodles clumping

- Always use a large flat pan the larger surface area encourages evaporation, which is a must for noodle strands that are cooked while retaining that bit of chewiness. Use a wok if no large pan available

- Use rice stick noodles or noodles that are 3-8mm in width

- Make the pad thai sauce first that way you can taste it and adjust for the balance of sweet, salty and sour. Adding the elements to the noodles will always result in overcooking

- Prep all the ingredients and have them laid out ready before you start cooking.

Ingredients

250g green prawns, peeled, deveined, tails in tact

A very generous handful of rice noodles softened in room temperature water for 2 hours

½ tbsp. dark soy sauce

1 tbsp palm sugar

1 tbsp white sugar

1 tbsp tamarind water

2 tbsp fish sauce

grapeseed oil for frying

25g firm tofu, cubed

1 egg

1 tbsp dried prawns (if unavailable substitute with plain fish furikake flakes – works just as well in my opinion)

To serve

1 small bunch of chives

1 stalk of green shallot

½ cup bean sprouts

2 tbsp crushed roasted peanuts

½ tbsp. roasted chilli powder

Lime wedges

Drain the softened noodles then add to a bowl with the dark soy sauce, toss to coat and set aside. Add the palm sugar, white sugar, tamarind water and fish sauce to a small saucepan and cook over low heat for 1-2 minutes until dissolved

Heat oil in a frypan over medium heat and flash fry the tofu. Gently remove and set aside. Crack the egg into the pan, turn down the heat and stir. Mix in dried prawns then add the noodles. Turn up the heat and stir fry for about a minute, you want the noodles to darken in colour slightly. Add the sauce and simmer for another minute or so, adding extra oil if you fear the noodles are clumping. Keep the pan moving. Check seasoning. Remove from heat.

In a separate pan, flash fry the prawns over high heat cooking 1-2 minutes each side or until cooked to your liking.

Serve the noodles immediately topped with sprouts and surrounded by all the elements.

Turkish Delight Roulade. Your New Dessert Weapon

 My love for Turkish delight knows no limits. Remember in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when Edmund couldn’t say no to a Turkish delight treat from the white witch? I really felt for the guy – he was me incarnate. There is something about the rose taste, the pink colour and the gelatinous silky texture of it in your mouth that is truly delightful and impossible to say no to. I’ve combined it here with a few other loves – meringue, fresh raspberries and pistachios in a roulade. Roulade is a dessert weapon. It looks super fancy but really is very simple to make. You can make the meringue part in advance then smear the fillings and roll just before serving.

Pistachio, Turkish Delight and Rose Roulade

Serves 6

Ingredients

6 eggwhites

1 ¼ cups caster sugar

1 tbsp cornflour

1 tsp lemon juice

2 tsp rose water

2 tbsp icing sugar, sifted

2 tbsp pistachios, crushed

1 cup double cream

1 cup Turkish delight, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 cup fresh raspberries

½ cup cup pistachio kernels

Method

To make the roulade, preheat the oven to 170ºC.

Line a Swiss-roll pan with baking paper. Grease the paper.

Beat the egg whites in a large bowl with an electric mixer fitted with a whisk at high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add in half the caster sugar then beat in the remaining caster sugar until stiff, glossy peaks form. Fold in the cornflour, lemon juice and rosewater. Spread the meringue evenly in the prepared pan. Bake for 20 minutes, or until pale golden, then allow to cool for about 1 hour.

Place another sheet of baking paper on a work surface and dust with icing sugar and crushed pistachios. Turn the meringue onto the baking paper. Carefully remove the top sheet of paper.

For the filling, beat the cream until soft peaks form. Spread the beaten cream over the meringue with a palette knife. Sprinkle the raspberries, Turkish delight and pistachio kernels over the cream. Use the paper to help you roll up the meringue from the short end. Ease the roulade, seam side down, onto a serving dish and refrigerate for 1 hour. To serve, cut slices and place lying down on a serving plate.

Pomegranate and maple slow cooked lamb shoulder

Pomegranate and spiced maple slow-roasted lamb shoulder with burghul and olive salad

I’d like to be upfront. This recipe involves meat in a bag. The old oven bag seemed to fall off the radar – something your grandma would do – or Jamie Oliver circa 1992. But you know what, the process rocks. And it helps achieve achingly soft meat that falls from the bone every time. A friend reintroduced the oven bag to me recently and so here it is, in all its’ slow cooking glory, housing one seriously tasty lamb dish that is spicy, tangy and a touch sweet all at once. It is the sort of lamb that will shake up your Sunday roast, so much so you may never go traditional again. The richness of the meat is great with the salty bite of the olive and burghul salad, all of which is tempered by a dollop of thick yoghurt. Yep, delicious. Oh I almost forgot the best bit - the leftovers (should you have any) are pretty magic as lunch the next day.

All you need is lamb. A bit of time with your oven on. And one oven bag.

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

1 x 1.7kg (approx.) lamb shoulder, bone in at room temperature

2 tbsp each cumin, coriander, fennel seeds

4 tbsp pomegranate molasses

4 tbsp good quality maple syrup (I use an oak aged bourbon maple)

2 tbsp grapeseed oil

4 garlic cloves, crushed

Salt and pepper to season

1 large oven bag

3-4 tbsp greek style yoghurt to serve (optional)

Salad

400g coarse burghul rinsed and drained

1 ½ - 2 cups chicken stock

1 cup good quality, Sicilian green olives, seeded

1 red onion, peeled, finely sliced

½ cup each finely chopped mint, coriander, flat leaf parsley

3 tbsp dried cranberries

3 tbsp currants

Seeds of ½ a fresh pomegranate

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp sumac

Preheat oven to 160C. Coarsely crush cumin, coriander and seeds with a mortar and pestle. Transfer to a bowl with the remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Place the lamb inside the oven bag and pour in the marinade ingredients. Seal and then using both hands ensure the mixture is coating the lamb. Place on a tray then bake in the oven for 5-6 hours.

To make the salad, add the chicken stock to a saucepan over medium heat and bring to the boil. Add the burghul, reduce heat to low, and cook, covered for 10 minutes or until the liquid has been absorbed. Fluff with a fork and add to a bowl with the remaining salad ingredients and toss to combine. The salad is best made just before serving.

To serve, remove the lamb from the oven. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before gently breaking the oven bag (be careful as it will be quite hot) and gently place the lamb on a serving tray, spooning over some of the lovely juices.

Serve with the burghul salad and yoghurt.

Kitchen Aid & Delicious Mag Dinner

Recently I was invited by Kitchen Aid to a Delicious Magazine Produce Awards Dinner at Martin Boetz's restaurant Rushcutters. In all honesty I usually avoid these kinds of things like the plague - I've had my fill of watered down conversations and chardonnay to last me a lifetime and then some; I'd rather stab myself in the eye with my fork. But you know what, I had a really really lovely night. The crew from Kitchen Aid, Delicious Mag and Filtered Media were such a nice bunch - one of those rare  moments you walk away and realise it was simply a table full of friends you hadn't met yet. 

And the food, well it was just beautiful. If Martin Boetz could do no wrong before (thank you Longrain for being one of the great food loves of my life) he continues at Rushcutters, using produce from his Cooks Co-op farm. And it was bonkers awesome. Lucky for me and now lucky for you, here is one of the recipes from the night. From Marty's hands to yours. Why thank you Chef Boetz.

I'm still trying to get my hands on the dessert recipe and if I have any luck will share it with you here soon - hand on heart I am still dreaming about it. But for now, try this mulloway dish. Immediately. You won't regret it. 

Martin Boetz.

Palmers Mulloway with watercress chives & Capertee saffron vinaigrette.

2x   180g pieces of mid cut mulloway fillets

8x   thin slices of cured pork leg 

salt & white pepper

Picked watercress

1 small bunch chives snipped in 1cm lengths

Lemon juice

olive oil

Saffron vinaigrette

300ml   dry white wine

80ml     white wine vinegar

!/2 teaspoon of saffron threads

1 teaspoon sugar

salt & white pepper to taste

60ml olive oil

In a heavy based saucepan add the white wine, wine vinegar & saffron threads

gently simmer until reduced by three-quarters.

Add the sugar and stir in until dissolved.

Whisk through the olive oil taste for seasoning then set aside

Method fish.

Wrap each fillet completely in the cured pork.

Heat a non stick pan & sear the fillets on both sides until pork is golden around 4 minutes each side.

remove from the pan & rest.

Toss the watercress & chives together dress with olive oil & lemon juice salt & white pepper.

To assemble 

Cut the fish on a diagonal & place in the bowl with the saffron vinaigrette & move around gently so the fish is flavoured

Arrange the watercress & chives in a serving bowl

Place the fish pieces on the leaves & spoon over more of the vinaigrette.

Serve.

Simple basil and mint ice cream

This isn’t so much a recipe as it is a few simple fantastic ingredients making friends in your blender and then your belly. It is the perfect way to use up the last of your summer basil and it is so light and refreshing, a hybrid ice cream meets frozen yoghurt. It may well end up as your go to dessert with a bowl of strawberries, much like it is mine.  Or plop a scoop or two into some waffle cones at your next bbq and be everyone’s best friend.

Best of all, it takes all of five seconds of your life to make. I’ve made it with and without an ice cream machine and to be honest the difference in results is so negligible, you may as well just skip the machine altogether. Minimum fuss for maximum outcome. Perfect.

Ingredients

1 bunch fresh basil, leaves picked

¼ bunch mint, leaves picked (or more to taste)

1 litre thick natural yoghurt

200g caster sugar300g mascarpone cheese

Method

Add all ingredients to the blender. Blitz until well combined and sugar has dissolved. Pour into a freezer proof container, cover with cling film to prevent ice crystals forming and freeze overnight. Best consumed within a few days of making.

Note: If you wanted something a little more tart, add the sugar gradually, stopping when the yoghurt mix is sweetened to your liking.