Cowboy butter prawns with konjac noodles

You guys!!! I'm still on my cowboy butter kick and I've got a batch in the fridge. It's a compound butter and it keeps. I've using it for this and that, and the other day I had some leftover eggs that I used in an egg wash. I didn't want to throw out the eggs so I mixed in some cowboy butter and voila! Cowboy butter scrambled eggs. It was super easy, but if you want the recipe for that, let me know. But today, I'm here to talk about using the cowboy butter with prawns which I cooked up for a quick evening snack. Took about 10 minutes all up to make, so this is FAST. And oh so yummy!!

Grilled garlic and chili baby octopus and prawn salad with chimmichurri dressing ... in the air fryer

So, I'm in a bloggity mood right now and we're home for a long weekend, which means a bit more cooking coming out of me. I'm giving the air fryer a good work out. Tonight I decided to combine some leftover chimmichurri sauce with some grilled baby octopus and prawns in a salad.

This is one of those super easy meals I like to throw together when we want something light and tasty. The seafood adds protein and makes the salad substantial which gives us a proper meal.

Here's what I had going on:

Tangy tagliatelle with prawns, tomato, spinach and garlic

Since we've moved, we have been shopping at Aldi rather than our usual Coles because it is much more budget friendly and we can get about 90% of what we are looking for, for our cooking and grocery needs. Plus The Boy has retired now and we need to just watch our spending.

The thing I like about Aldi is that each week they have some kind of themed special and this week it was "gourmet" week. It was great fun as they had some lovely Italian finishing balsamic vinegars, whole truffles in jars, seasoned sea salt, and some great handmade Italian egg pasta noodles.

I picked up some rather fancy tomato and chili tagliatelle and decided to come up with a tasty dish of my own. I had this idea that I didn't want a "sauce" for the pasta per se, but rather, I wanted to dress it in some olive oil, garlic and lemon.

This is what I came up with:

Ingredients:

• 250g tagliatelle pasta
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 250g grape tomatoes, halved
• 60g baby spinach (half of a 120g bag)
• 30 prawns (medium sized)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt

Instructions:

• Put water to boil for pasta, add some olive oil and salt into the water. While the water is coming to a boil, prep all your ingredients. When water is boiling put in tagliatelle, cook for 6 - 7 minutes, until pasta is al dente.
• While pasta is cooking, in a large wok or frying pan, put in some olive oil and the prawns. When the prawns are lightly cooked, add in the garlic and cook for about 1 minute (you do not want to brown the garlic, just cook it a little bit). This should be about 3 to 4 minutes into the pasta cooking at this point.
• Then add in the tomatoes and cook for a minute or two. Add more olive oil, you need enough olive oil to coat all the pasta.
• After tomatoes have cooked for a while, (the pasta should be ready now) add in spinach and stir around to cook the spinach. 
• Add lemon juice and continue cooking.
• Drain the pasta and put the cooked pasta into the frying pan. Stir the pasta around so that it is coated in all the olive oil and lemon juice and the flavor of the sauce. Taste and add salt, if necessary.
• Serve and eat immediately.
• Enjoy!

This recipe turned out super tasty. The lemon in the dressing just added a special tanginess to the flavor of the pasta that was sensational.

I even went so far to say that this dish is definitely fit for company and I will definitely make it again and even do it when we have company.

Now, I know I said that I used a tomato and chili (hence the redness of the pasta in the picture!) tagliatelle, but really, any tagliatelle will do, and if you prefer, even try it with linguine or fettuccine. I think both of those will be lovely with this dish as well.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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Pork dumplings with chili oil

I recently bought a cookbook called "Asian Wraps & Rolls" by Vicki Liley, which I've started using. The reason I bought this cookbook was also the reason for this post. These very yummy pork dumplings. I was browsing through the cookbook while at the store and when I saw the recipe for pork dumplings, it sealed the deal for me!

I have to say that I love dumplings. Well, both The Boy and I do and we've been buying ours from Chinese grocery stores frozen, which we would then steam for a snack or a light lunch.

However, I wanted to make them myself (so much more control as we don't live near any Chinese grocery stores now) and this recipe made it a great opportunity for me to do so.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

• 150g ground minced pork
• 150g jumbo shrimp / king prawns, shelled and deveined (I use frozen ones that have been defrosted)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon peeled and freshly grated ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoons freshly chopped cilantro (fresh coriander)
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh Vietnamese mint
• 16 wonton skins

For chili oil:

• 1 tablespoon chili oil
• 1 teaspoons kechap manis
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon Chinese red vinegar

Instructions:

• In a good processor, combine pork, shrimp, garlic, ginger and salt. Process for 20 seconds, or until well blended. Transfer to a bowl and add cilantro and mint. Using wet hands, mix until well combined.
• Place wonton skins on a work surface. Cover remaining skins with a clean damp cloth.
• Place 1 tablespoon of pork filling in centre of wonton skin and brush edges of skin with water. Gather edges around filling, forming a basket. Gently squeeze centre of dumpling so that the filling is exposed at top. Tap base of dumpling on work surface to flatten. Set aside on a tray and cover with plastic wrap. Repeat with remaining wonton skins and filling.
• Line a medium sized bamboo steamer with parchment (baking paper). Fill a medium sized wok about 1/3 full with water (steamer should not touch the water). Bring water to a boil. Arrange the dumplings in steamer. Cover with lid. Place steamer over boiling water. Steam for 12 minutes, adding more water to wok as necessary.
• Meanwhile, stir all chili oil ingredients together in a small bowl. Lift steamer off work and carefully remove dumplings from steamer. Serve hot, with chili oil for dipping.

I doubled the recipe as I wanted to make a bit more so that I would have some leftovers for lunch the next day as I made these for an afternoon snack and also perhaps, if there was enough, to freeze for another day. Alas, between us eating them (The Boy had seconds) and me giving some of them away to my neighbour, we didn't have much left. There's enough for me to have a small serve for lunch tomorrow. I'll need to make more next time.

I did do a few things differently, just because I had some ingredients (in different forms) already in the fridge and I wanted to use them. I used the same measurements (just doubled) for the substitutes.

Instead of freshly chopped coriander and ginger, I used a coriander paste and a ginger paste from Gourmet Garden. They do some lovely herb pastes that are excellent quality and taste wonderful.

I also used minced garlic from a jar rather than fresh garlic, again because I had some in the fridge and I was wanting something quick and easy with minimal chopping to get the snack made quickly.

The grocery store did not have Vietnamese mint, so I just used plain old mint. It was a fine substitute.

I put everything except the mint into the food processor (I used my Thermomix!) and mixed it for 10 seconds instead of 20, just because my Thermomix mixes faster. If you are using a regular food processor, try the 20 seconds but keep an eye on your mixture. You don't want to over process it. Then, I hand mixed the mint through the meat mixture, just so that the mint was still in little pieces rather than processed to mush.

When steaming, make sure that you allow quite a bit of space between the dumplings as they do expand in size when they are cooked. I made the mistake of not allowing enough room as I wanted to steam them all in one batch and they got pretty stuck together. Fortunately, I was able to remove them without damaging the wrapper.

These turned out SUPER tasty. We usually put soy and chili sauce over our dumplings, but in reality these did not need them, in particular it did not need the chili sauce.

I hope you try these out. If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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Turkish prawn and chili pasta

The Boy has decided that he would like to learn how to cook pasta and tonight he's picked this recipe out of "A Gluten Free Taste of Turkey" by Sibel Hodge. Of course, this also means that he is the one doing the cooking with a few helpful hints from me.

He's never cooked pasta before so he doesn't actually know how to cook al dente pasta, which is super easy really - boil water, add salt and oil (some people say the oil isn't necessary but I like to add it only because it means that the pasta doesn't stick together as much) and then when the water is boiled put in pasta and cover the pot with a small gap to let steam out. Boil the pasta for EXACTLY 8 minutes and there you have it, al dente pasta every time.

Tonight, he's picked a prawn and chili pasta dish which is somewhat different from my garlic prawns with spaghetti dish. In Turkish, this dish is called "Aci biberli Sarimsakli Karides Makarna" to which the pronunciation, I'm certain that I would butcher if I had to say it out loud. I'm looking forward to trying it.

This would be our 3rd recipe out of this cookbook and the recipe looks simple yet delicious.

Here's the RECIPE for the dish:

Ingredients:

• 115g gluten free pasta
• 4 cloves of garlic - crushed and chopped
• 1 cup of small prawns or approx 12 king prawns
• 2 - 4 spring onions - sliced
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon fresh chili or dried chili flakes
• 3 - 4 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt to taste

Instructions:

• Cook the pasta until it's soft (see above for al dente instructions!).
• In the meantime, fry the garlic and spring onions in olive oil until cooked and soft.
• Add chili flakes and prawns and continue cooking. Turn prawns over to make sure both sides are cooked.
• Turn down to a low heat and cover with a lid to infuse the flavors for a few minutes.
• Drain the pasta, add into prawn mixture in frying pan and add more olive oil and salt to flavor.
• Toss the pasta with the prawn mixture until evenly mixed.
• Serve!

This recipe will serve 2 people.

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Prawn and gorgonzola risotto ... in the Thermomix

Tonight I had intended to write a post about my crustless spinach quiche only to discover that I had already done it previously and just forgotten that I forgot that I did it. Duh me!

On top of that, my mid-week post is late since it's already Thursday night. Sorry 'bout that. Very slack of me. I have no excuses. I've just been hiding away in The Apartment amusing myself and passing time watching videos while The Boy has been away for work and missing him terribly.

The Boy came home tonight. Yay!

So ... instead, I thought I'd post yet another risotto recipe and yes, again, this one is done in the Thermomix, but really, if you follow the instructions in my basic risotto recipe being made the traditional way, you can easily modify the recipe to do this.

The Boy loves this dish and we often serve it as a starter for dinner parties. It's simply delicious, especially if you love prawns and gorgonzola.

A word of advice, the saffron adds a lot. I once didn't have any saffron and ran out to Cole to buy some cheap Masterfoods saffron. It didn't taste nearly as good. If you can, try to get some good quality saffron. I'm very fortunate, a very good friend (and one of my boys) is Iranian and each time he goes back to Iran, I have him bring me back some mondo premium saffron for me to cook with. I definitely recommend a friend like that. Spanish saffron is pretty good too and definitely much better that the crap they sell at Coles, but in a pinch, that will have to do.

Here's the RECIPE for the risotto:

Ingredients

• ½ onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Handful of fresh basil
• 40g Olive oil
• 300g Arborio rice
• 80g white wine
• 4 tsp chicken stock
• 2 pinch of saffron
• 1 litre of hot water
• 10 king prawns shelled, without tails
• 80g Gorgonzola
• 10 cherry tomatoes
• 2 handfuls of baby spinach

Instructions

• Chop onion, garlic and basil together Speed 6, 3 – 5 seconds, scrape sides
• Add olive oil and sauté at 100 degrees for 2 minutes
• Put in butterfly
• Add Arborio rice and wine wine, sauté for 2 minutes at Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• Add stock, hot water mixed with saffron, set time to 13 minutes, Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• After 13 minutes, add prawns, cook at 100 degrees for 2 minutes, Reverse speed 1
• Add tomatoes and gorgonzola (crumbled) cook at 100 degrees for 1 minute, Reverse speed 1
• To serve, add 2 handfuls of baby spinach to bottom of thermoserver, then pour in risotto. Cover and rest for 5 minutes, then serve

I don't vary this recipe at all though I would be careful of the use of the gorgonzola. The gorgonzola is very strong, so if you don't like too strong a flavor ease off on the amount used and as a rule, try not to use more than the recommended amount in the recipe.

Oh and you don't need salt as the gorgonzola will provide plenty of saltiness to taste but you might want to season with pepper.

I often serve this on a bed of rocket for the spiciness of the leaves rather than spinach.

Enjoy!

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I want to know what HUX is ....

We've got friends visiting us from Qatar. They are dear, dear friends who we met when we lived over there. As was said over the meal, when you are there, as people come and go, you have to love them fast and love them deep and with these friends, this is what we did.

We are delighted to have them over in our fair city and to be able to show them our home and share parts of our lives with them.

Fortunately, they also arrived on a Friday night which gave us the weekend with them. On the Saturday, we spent the day at the Blue Mountains and ended the day at HUX @ Nortons.

When I mentioned that we would be eating at HUX for dinner, the response was quite excited and enthusiastic.

"I must know what this HUX is, I see you talking about it on facebook so much."

"This HUX has peppered so many of your facebook status updates, I'm so excited to find out what it's all about."

So .... dinner at HUX, it was.

Fortunately for us, Jay was there the night we turned up and we had a nice time and was also able to introduce him to our friends.

As usual the food was delightful and as usual, I didn't eat it all because I have a stomach the size of a pea. Again, fortunately, Jay is used to me and my odd eating habits and takes it all in stride. When I mentioned what I wanted to try that night, he looked at me and exclaimed "my gosh! I'm going to have to serve you everything in a thimble!" .... LOL!! Jay knows me so well!!

We started with a beetroot, goats cheese and asparagus salad, which The Boy had. Jay tells us that the watermelon radish in the dish was grown in how own garden specially for this dish. I'm not a fan of beetroot, but I will eat Jay's beetroot.

I had the seafood chowder, which was thick and creamy and made with big chunks of John Dory. Possibly the yummiest chowder I've had in a long time. I was certain it would give me cow belly, but it didn't. :-)

Our friends shared a prawn salad with a chili infused mayonnaise. The salad was tossed in a rather delightful and tangy vinaigrette that had one of our friends almost licking the plate. He said that he was not one for frilly green stuff but this was an exception. Of course, the salad was also massive and a meal in itself. There was plenty to share.

As we moved onto our mains, I, of course, had wondered how I was going to finish mine but then I remembered that I had three other people to help me with it. :-)

The Boy had his usual, which was the Angus Porterhouse steak done medium rare, but with Jay's awesome potato salad rather than potato chips. I think The Boy has had this dish 4 out of the last 5 times he's eaten at HUX.

I had the slow roasted pork belly in apple juice, which was supposed to come with beans and chorizo, but I didn't want beans and chorizo, so Jay had to make something up for me. Fortunately (again!), Jay is very good at "making something up" and whatever he served with the pork belly was yummy. I only ate one of the two pieces of pork belly that came with my dish, and left the other piece for my other three dinner companions to sample. The pork belly was delicately flavored, moist and topped with a super crunchy crackling.

Our friends both had fish. One of them had a whole fish of the day - which was a flounder lightly grilled with lemon herb butter. It looked very tasty to me. I think I would have liked it.

And the other friend had the John Dory fish and chips. I've had that dish before and it is superb. She had it with the chips, whereas I usually have it with the potato salad, but her husband did order a side of the potato salad, so they shared that as well.

As usual, it was a delicious and satisfying meal at HUX. Of course, also great value being technically speaking "pub food" but seriously, it ain't "pub food" in the traditional sense when you have Jay cooking your meal for you. Everything is "home made" and nothing is processed or pre-packaged.

Of course, I recommend HUX highly and think everyone should go!

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Garlic prawns with spaghetti

It's a horrible, pouring wet day today. It has rained non-stop all day and not only has it rained but it has rained heavily. On top of that, I've had my fair share of running around in the rain, first to our Macquarie Park office for the afternoon, and then around the city to the store because my keyboard and mouse at work decided to die and I had to get a replacement. My poor little umbrelly got a workout keeping me covered but it did not save my shoes from getting sodding wet. I won't be able to wear those shoes again tomorrow 'cos they need to dry out.

Anyway just wanted to share ....

So with all the wet and running around, I did not have time to go to the store for groceries and decided to cook what's in the fridge, pantry and freezer. This means garlic prawns with spaghetti aglio, olio e pepperoncino. I've done this dish before and posted the ingredients, but I never actually got round to posting the finished product, so here it is.

It's the exact same dish as the one I cooked here, which was sauteeing some prawns in garlic and olive oil with a pinch of salt, and serving it on a bed of spaghetti aglio, olio e pepperoncino with a side of salad in caramelized balsamic vinegar and garlic olive oil dressing (which I texted The Boy to run to the grocery store to get the greenery for the salad on my behalf, which he kindly did between meetings today).

This is a favorite for both The Boy and I.

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Getting ready to cook tonight's dinner

Tonight would be my last night of scrounging the fridge and pantry for ingredients for a fresh dinner. I made garlic sauteed prawns on a bed of spaghetti alio, olio e pepperoncino, with a side of salad in caramelized balsamic vinegar and garlic olive oil dressing.

Results of the cooking to come.

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Prawn cocktails

Here's something that's totally 70s and yet very tasty. It's a great way to do a yummy and yet simple starter for a dinner party and it can be presented in a variety of ways to make it very fun and colorful (it's all those lovely, orange, cooked prawns!) Who knows, it might even come back into fashion one day. :-)

To begin, all you need in a bunch of cooked prawns from your local fish market or fresh fish store. How much you get depends entirely on how many people you are going to feed. I'd say about 4 - 6 prawns per person is plenty, because along with the homemade cocktail sauce, it is pretty rich.

You will also need 1 head of cos lettuce or romaine lettuce.

To make the cocktail sauce, you will need to make your basic mayonnaise, which you can find the RECIPE for here. After that you will need:

Ingredients for cocktail sauce:

• 1/ teaspoon paprika
• 3 squirts of tomato ketchup
• A splash of Worcestershire sauce

Instructions:

• Make basic mayonnaise
• Add to basic mayonnaise the cocktail sauce ingredients and mix well
• Adjust quantities of cocktail sauce to taste

Once the cocktail sauce is made, finely slice the lettuce till you have about a third cup amount serving per person for however many people you are serving. Mix some of the cocktail sauce through the sliced lettuce and set it aside.

Shell the prawns any way you like (without any shell, with tail, with head and tail, whatever takes your fancy, though I personally prefer to leave only the tail - something for you to hold onto when you're picking up the prawn with your fingers, if you are that way inclined!) and arrange the prawns, cocktail sauce and lettuce salad on a plate, bowl or martini glass. If there is room, you can also include some whole lettuce leaves as part of your arrangement. You can make the arrangement as fancy or as simple as you like.

Once your arrangement is done, serve and enjoy.



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