Coast Recipes

I recently went up to the Sunshine Coast with a bunch of friends from work. We went because Jen is sadly leaving us to head back to her homeland of Canada. She will be sorely missed due to her bubbliness, helpfulness, cheerfulness, general awesomeness and many other nesses. I'm not normally the kind of person to go out drinking even with friends, but I made the exception for Jen.

I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE

I stepped up to cook for 10+ people for the event. As always I was extremely nervous, I'm always worried that I'll give someone food poisoning. My Boyfriend went with me and he said that all during the night he had to keep waking me up because I was grinding my teeth in my sleep.

The kitchen wasn't greatly stocked, the one large knife they had was too long, blunt and slipped off onions, they only had one large mixing bowl and no cake tins. For pots and pans, there was a terrible stainless steel pan that burnt everything, had no insulated handle and that J-Dawg referred to as an ugly slut of a pan, an electric wok that could only be placed in one spot as there was only two electrical points in the kitchen right beside the sink and at the end of the island which had no ventilation. The gas burner was set up so left was off, middle was the hottest heat and then right was lowest heat, weird as fuck. There was one colander to use.

 I was so worried about having nothing special to cook with I went down with my own cooking gear. I brought down a mandolin, two springform 22cm cake tins, a wire cooling rack and a 12 piece muffin tin. I also brought down cinnamon, green onions, pad thai sauce jar in triple wrap, vanilla bean paste, a large amount of red onions/ brown onions/ garlic/ cucumber, garlic chives and flaked almonds.

Despite all this, the food went down really well. On the Monday night I made pork san choi bow, chicken pad thai and apple crumble muffins. On the Tuesday, I made for breakfast, garlic thyme mushrooms, shaker pancakes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, huge amounts of toast and the other girls made breakfast mimosas. I made a lemon cheesecake and more apple crumble muffins during the day. For dinner on Tuesday, we had marinated Vietnamese beef noodle salad and a marinated Vietnamese chicken noodle salad. For breakfast, Wednesday morning we had more bacon, French toast, hash browns, random fruit salad and more toast.

Here are all the recipes I used or at least variations on a theme. I didn't deviate from these recipes very much so here are their links from earlier in my blog.

 Apple crumble muffin,

Pad Thai

San Choi Bow

Uses: easy appetiser, pretending to be healthy

Ingredients:
1 large brown onion, diced
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
500g pork mince
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup of kecap manis
1/4 cup of oyster sauce
Pepper.
1 can of baby corn, cut into 2-3cm blobs, I used a large 425g can
1 can of water chestnut slices, tiny 1cm pieces, I used the Valcom brand of 227g
1 stalk of lemongrass or 1 tablespoon of lemongrass paste
1 head of iceburg lettuce, carefully separated into cups
Cooking oil

Optional:
1 minced birds eye chilli
Ginger
1 teaspoon of sesame seeds
Diced shiitake mushrooms
Carrot
Turkey/chicken/beef mince

Instructions:
1. Dice up all your ingredients, onions, garlic, baby corn and water chestnut slices. Place a plate or something, while you get everything ready.
2. Heat your frying pan until hot, pour in some oil and get ready.
3. Brown your onions until fragrant, 2-4 minutes, then throw in your garlic and lemon grass until also fragrant.
4. Throw in all your pork mince, break it up with a spoon until they are all just cooked.
5. Pour in all your sauces, stir to combine. Taste and see what is missing, soy sauce is your salt, oyster is your general tastiness, kecap manis is your sweetness. Season with pepper after.
6. Throw in your baby corn and water chestnut pieces until combined.
7. Get someone else to break off your lettuce leaves. The easiest way to do this is to flip your lettuce upside down, and break it off at the very base of the lettuce, peeling carefully outwards so you reveal a whole unbroken leaf. Or you can try this looks cool but a bit wary.

Marinated Beef

Uses: Salads, rice paper wraps, protein loading

Ingredients:
1kg of beef, I used topside roast
1 large sliced brown onion
4 cloves of minced garlic
1/4 cup of oyster sauce
1/4 cup of kecap manis
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/3 cup of cooking oil
1 stalk of lemongrass, 2-3 tablespoons of lemongrass paste
1/2 squeezed lime
1/2 cup of sliced green onions

Instructions:
1. Place the beef in the fridge while you are chopping everything else up.
2.  Get the beef out of the fridge and cut into thin slices of meat. Slightly frozen beef keeps its shape better and doesn't squish down like unfrozen meat.
3. Mix everything together in a large bowl/tray whatever. Place in fridge sometime before you want to actually eat the food, give it at least half an hour to marinate. Leave a note on the fridge door to shake/stir the meat every time someone goes to get something from the fridge.
4. Heat a large frying pan/wok/grill to a high medium/hot heat, oil with butter or actual oil until melted.
5. Cook the meat in small batches, stirring frequently until the onions caramelise and the meat has a nice char, depending on what you use expect this to take anywhere between 3-6 minutes, the thinner the slices of meat the faster it cooks. Allow the meat to rest slightly before serving.

Marinated Chicken

Uses: salads, rice paper wraps, rice whatever really

Ingredients:
1kg of diced, brined chicken thighs, skin off
1 large sliced brown onion
4 cloves of minced garlic
1/4 cup of oyster sauce
2/3 cup of kecap manis
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1/3 cup of cooking oil
1 stalk of lemongrass, 2-3 tablespoons of lemongrass paste
1/2 squeezed lime

*Brine/brining is a technique where you put chopped meat, normally chicken into a salt water bath. You literally chop the meat, throw on some salt, cover it in water and leave it for the same time you would a marinate. Brining both seasons the meat and makes the meat more tender as the salt enters the cells of the meat and causes the meat to absorb more water, increasing its weight and moisture by as much as 20%. It's good for meat like chicken breast which has a tendency to dry out and have little flavour or if you're cooking a whole roast, where one part of the roast cook and dry out faster than the other, ie breast versus thighs. Check out this site for a more scientific explaination.

Instructions:
1. Dice your chicken thighs into bite sized chunks. Place into a large bowl/tray and add about 1/4 cup of salt, you can use more if you are pressed for time. 
2. Cover the chicken in cool water until the chicken just barely floats. Leave for some time before proceeding with the rest of the marinade.
3. Drain off the chicken, chop everything else up.
4. Mix everything together in a large bowl/tray whatever. Place in fridge sometime before you want to actually eat the food, give it at least half an hour to marinate but no longer than a day. Leave a note on the fridge door to shake/stir the meat every time someone goes to get something from the fridge.
5. Heat a large frying pan/wok/grill to a high medium/hot heat, oil with butter or actual oil until melted.
6. Cook the meat in small batches, stirring frequently until the onions caramelise and the meat has a nice char, depending on what you use expect this to take anywhere between 5-10 minutes. Allow the meat to rest slightly before serving.