Cirque

Woohoo! Finished another round of nights. As per my tradition, I scoured Urbanspoon for the best places for breakfast available to my usual strict criteria, available to public transport, decent prices, good looking food, an interesting menu and something new! 

H. and I went after work straight to Cirque. Cirque is hardly the most innovative of locations to go to. Its probably in the top 5-10 places of Brisbane in everyone's list for solid breakfasts, other locations include Gun Shop, Flute Fine Food, Anouk, Lady Marmalade, Pearl Cafe, Crosstown Eating House, Campos, Brew, Comfort at my table, Dandelion and Driftwood and those are just the ones I can name off the top of my head. I've been to five of the aforementioned locations, Cirque now, Gun Shop, Flute Find Food, Lady Marmalade, Crosstown Eating House and working on the rest. Although I can't bring myself to eat at Pearl, not sure why, maybe its the uninspiring menu that gets to me.

Don't lie. This looks delicious.

It was a massive toss up between Cirque and Symposium, both in New Farm and looking good from their Urbanspoon reviews, website menus, friend's envy when going past as well as this blog's stunning photos and excellent reviews. We were initially pegged for Symposium from that crazy blog photo of their filo pastry with scrambled eggs, proscutto and liberally drowned in hollandaise sauce for a fatty breakfast overload.
On closer inspection though, the Symposium web menu reveals that this is no longer an option and so to Cirque it was!

Sneaky Cirque. Thought it was closed for a tick

After being incredulously stared down by a female customer, we were quickly seated by the attentive wait staff there. Seriously the wait staff were fantastic, they were helpful, polite, eager to please and with genuine smiles, but who wouldn't smile at the combo of H. and myself? As soon as we were seated, bam cold water and glasses, as well as instant menus and asking us what drink we wanted. H. declined and I went for the pineapple and mint frappe, a frothy, sweet and not overly minty drink although the taste was definitely there. Immense like, smooth as silk, no chunky ice or pineapple fibre, I was a happy girl.

Pineapple and mint frappe.
Its not even green or garnished with mint! Such restraint!

While we were deciding on the menu, H. was agonising over two choices, the breakfast pide or the corn cakes. H. is notorious for choosing possibly the worst item on the menu. Or if not the worst items on the menu, she ends up with massive food envy. We once went to Jude with friends and she ordered a cold roasted vegetable tart, that was tiny, apparently not very tasty and suffered whilst the rest of us ate burgers the size of our heads. Apparently I have the best taste in picking food based off of word menus, some things you just can't learn I guess, although frantic urbanspoon/instagraming does help. She was trying to convince me to help her decide between the pair, and I was almost contemplating just ordering both dishes so we could try both, when our waitress swooped in.

We told her about our dilemma, and she helpfully went through the menu with us. I like that, nothing worse than an indecisive or even super pushy wait staff. H. mentioned that she wanted to eat something savoury but was unsure if the corn cakes were savoury. Our waitress replied that the corn cakes were definitely the better of the two, as they were quite interesting in taste and texture, while the breakfast pide was basically a fancy toasted sandwich. She also had good up sell abilities, considering I got my house smoked rainbow trout with a side of toast, "its not very filling and you might need something to mop up that yolk," and H. decided to tack on a side of bacon with her corn cakes. Good job waitress, good job.
While we were waiting, H. got to complaining about my blog's lack of photos, menus, recipes and other fun stuff. Apparently H. is also a fan of this blog! I've been sick was my excuse! I dutifully popped out my phone and began taking snaps of the restaurant. I'm not quite at ease taking snapshots of anything beside my food yet, being a somewhat paranoid, maybe not private person in real life.
One of the nurses, whose nickname I cannot decide on who I shall call Ms. Chai, had a rousing conversation with myself and a sleepy patient about the merits of chai tea at about 3am in the morning. We discussed coffees vs teas and then the wonders of chai, the various chai tea locations around our work place, the choice between syrups. too sickly, powders, just right, or spice mixes, too time consuming and bits, and different good chais we had recently. With that in mind, I'm sure she'll be pleased to see that Cirque have such a great chai tea blend that they can sell it as a side line item. You can also see the brand of coffee they stock, Genovese.

House blend chai mix. Mmmmm smells like chai~

This doorway lead to what must be a restocking/second dining area as I kept seeing wait staff pop down there and come back up with ingredients. 

Downstairs?

And here is our food! Mine is the smoked rainbow trout with soft poached eggs, wilted spinach, chorizo, horseradish rosti and beurre noisette. With my side of toast! 

House smoked rainbow trout and friends

H. got the sweet corn cakes with smashed avocado, tomato salsa and a side of bacon.

Sweet corn cakes. Not just a bacon stack!

This is a post attack photo! Check out that oozy egg yolk phroar!

Oh baby

H. immediately destroyed her tower, but also paused while I was taking a photo, geez she's good! 

She was a blur! She already ate some

While I was taking photos, H. cut me out a blob of corn cake with some of her rocket, tomato salsa and avocado speared on it. The corn cakes were solid, the corn kernels were everywhere but they didn't have that great pop! of sweetness that really good sweet corn has. Maybe that's just a personal preference for me. They were compact little things with a great shape and colour to them. Probably wouldn't order it again though. I didn't really notice the onion jam when I was tasting it though, unless that white sauce is it? Whatever it was, it was tasty.
I was super impressed by the amount of bacon present. Not bad for a $2.50 side! Crispy with a bit of a chew to it and gorgeous char markings, it was still juicy and bloody heaps of it too. After eating most of the bacon, H. gave me a piece hahaha.

Meanwhile for my ocean trout, the poached eggs looked fantastic. I'm slightly suspicious of them as they seem a little TOO perfect, not a single wispy bit in sight. Ah well, whatever gives me gooey yolked poached eggs, and boy were they ever. Huge amounts of spinach, well wilted so still having their vibrant colour and holding a shape. The ocean trout was meltingly soft, flaking apart when I just looked at it, it had a lovely, delicate smoky flavour to it, stronger than others' I've had, but I'm not complaining. The sour dough bread was fantastic, light sour notes, with that fresh bread turned to toast crunch you get to the soft innards as well as the still chewy crust. 

The only thing I had to complain about my dish was probably the rosti. I couldn't really taste the horseradish in any sort of way, I didn't even get a bit of a nose clearing tang from the horseradish. It also looked terrible, so terrible I didn't even want to take a photo. I basically went, what the hell is that once I'd taken off the spinach. It was greyish plank of potato, it invoked images of a dodgy cheese less potato bake, not what should be a golden brown, crunchy potato rosti. Maybe it got soggy, who knows, I still ate it all. Not really sure why the little chorizo cubes kept appearing either, I felt like it didn't make much sense being in there. Also where was my fancy French buerre noisette! WHERE IS MY BURNT BUTTER SAUCE.

I WANT IT NOW

While we were eating, our table was quietly rocking away and when we were distracted, our waitress slide up to us and popped a coaster under the offending table leg. I saw you lady, I applaud your skill. Your service is almost Japanese in its efficiency, take that with highest honour.

Basically our waitress.

Anyway, it was a nice little shop. I'd be keen to go here again to try some of their other menu items, like the intriguing CHOW DOWN. My sister, VGirl, says the vego chow down and the vege pide are a good sell.

H. and I talked about lots of things, mostly food related stuff while we were there. She demanded I make a future posts teaching her how to make my beef stroganoff, Vietnamese omelette, zuccini slice and my fluffy frittatas. She also found out my recipe for potato and danish feta cakes and my spinach pie made also with feta and this time ricotta cheese. H. also wants to go out and eat at Lady Lamington, Symposium, Ipoh Laksa and this other food place we found on Cudo. Look out for these future I guess!? Send me any requests for anything I've made in the past and I'll try my best to oblige!

An unusual state of being

Apologies for the lack of posting recently, I've been in an unusual state. For the first time in a long time, I've actually been quite unwell. Its August, and in Queensland that means its time for both the last real effort of winter to make everyone miserable and sick as well as the Royal Queensland Show, the only decent agricultural festival Queensland has to offer.

The Ekka in all its glory

Whilst not quite on the same scale as the Easter show down south in NSW, it does have a lot of fond memories for most QLDers. Depending on where you live in Brisbane, your school had a particular show holiday, so places like Ipswich, Logan, the Gold Coast, Redlands and so forth all had their particular day. This was probably to ensure that there was always a steady flow of customers to the Ekka and not to slam any one day with a billion school children. For my area we were just on the outskirts of Brisbane, so we got both the Brisbane show holiday and our district's show holiday. Most likely the only benefit, of going to school where I went. Unfortunately if you actually went to school IN Brisbane, such as All Hallows, Brisbane State, Somerville House, you didn't get a second holiday hahaha.

Ha ha! You live in Brisbane and only get one holiday!

Growing up, for me it meant pouring over the Courier Mail's show bag guide, armfuls of show bags, swapping stuff I didn't want from my show bags with other kids in my street/friends/relatives, free pens and toys from the stalls, walking through Sideshow Alley with friends when we waited to play in our school band, checking out the pig racing and log throwing, trying to decide what to eat at the International Food pavilion, the iconic food and scamming food samples from the Woolies Pavilion. Also our yearly fight with that one clown on stilts. That bastard.

Not the aforementioned clown. I would know him if I saw him.

The other thing that the Ekka is well know for, is making everyone sick. Every few years there's a giant flu epidemic that hits Brisbane with the last one being in about 2007 with the swine flu scare and 2011 being just terrible flu season. I remember cause my cousins got sick and those guys are never sick. It was terrible. Unfortunately I didn't even go to the Ekka and I was sick.

I was at work when I suddenly got a tickle in my throat, by the end of the day it had gotten worse and I called in sick for the next two days. Sore throat, achy body, heavily congested, lethargic and with a potent weight loss of 9kg. This was despite my constant eating knowing that whenever I do get sick, I drop weight like its intentional and cool. Unfortunately like a Biggest Loser contestant, I pile it back on as soon as I recover.

Get really sick and start sneezing on everything. Lose 9kg in 3 days!

Unlike some of my friends at work, I rarely get sick. I attest this to my good immune system, sensible clothing choice, lack of exposure to at risk activities and love of big black coats, a terrible love since I have a husky that sheds white fur.

Basically another entire dogs' worth of hair.

In addition this this, there is a second factor in my usual mood. I'm actually moderately happy for once because my interest in someone has been mutually reciprocated and its been a long time since that's happened. I don't think I'm normally in a low mood or depressed, but its been a bit of a rough year for me.

One of my friends at work, Mr M for Megababe told me he hates the part that I love the most. The indecisive, heart fluttering initial outset where you're not sure if they like you. The hesitant waiting for their calls, their texts, their comments and likes in this day and age. The elation of a glad response. The coy inquiries into each others' lives. The wistful daydreams and long conversations into the night. I enjoy this part the most when getting to know someone new.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde.

Poison Study, Soto and Hazel Tea's Taro Milk Tea with red beans

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder has been on my reading backlog for a while. Shortly after I finished reading Insurgent, I started reading this. As of this post, I'm onto the next of that world's series called Storm Glass. So I read all of Poison Study, Assassin Study, Magic Study and Fire Study and am halfway through Storm Glass in about five? days. That really goes to show how much I enjoyed this series.

Poison Study
Apparently this is the YA cover. Its defs not a YA book

I figured to save myself time from now on out, I would just review the first book in a series and leave it up to the reader to figure out if they wanted to continue. I mean if you liked the first book, you're sure to read the second and third and fourth, am I right? So this review is primarily about Poison Study, however I will take generally about the entire book series as a whole.

Very nice.

Poison Study is about Yelena, a girl who was convicted of murder and openly admitted to killing her victim, the only son of General Brazell of Ixia, a man known for his kindness in taking in orphans and raising them. On the day of her execution, she is visited by Valek, the magician killer, a master assassin who runs the Commander's spy networks and is offered a final chance, to become the Commander's food taster for poisons or to die.

If you google "no choice"
A lot of naked people appear in Google images = /

The story is fast paced, and always relevant, world building is thick and fast and the plot continues to actively develop with every chapter. Ixia, is a country run in an almost communistic way, years ago, the corrupt king of Ixia and his power hungry magicians were overtaken by Commander Ambrose and Valek. The Commander abides by a strict code of behaviour, that even he is subject to as is his country, still Ixia, but now know under their military district. Very Hunger Games. Every man, woman and child has their role to play in society, there is no form of currency as the governing is done by the Generals and everyone is provided for. Anyone can rise up by merit alone, but the law is strict, with uniforms for districts and permits required even to leave the military districts, get married or travel around, and the punishment even worse. The Southern nation of Sitia, is another issue though but you learn all about it as the series unfolds.

The characters are strong, vibrant and well written with everyone having a distinct flavour. Its not hard at all to keep track of who is who, what they do and how they would act, as they are all marvellously well written. Yelena is a strong female lead, with a sharp intelligence and great common sense. She is decisive and I really like her, she understands what needs to be done even at risk to herself. Valek, I'd like to hit like a bass drum if you know what I mean and I can't really say anything else cause it would ruin the story but the Power Twins are a hoot and a half.

All in all, I would strongly recommend reading this series, it can be a bit gory at times. So Yassminator, read fast through those bits :)

I went shopping today with my sister and we dropped off a massive shopping trolley worth of unwanted books. We ended up at Sunnybank Hills shopping centre. After minutes of agonising whether I should include weird Asian snacks as a yet another thing to add to my list of reviews, books, food and games, my sister, the helpful VGirl, bluntly pointed out snacks are food. So I've added them to my list of things to review. Its a fair enough call, since I frequently go shopping in Asian food stores, always have some change handy and am fairly adventurous in buying weird foods and drinks. I really wanted a weird Asian drink but instead opted to let VGirl pay for my drink at Hazel Tea, a mistake I would soon come to regret.

Words aren't even needed.

Anyway, I picked out this little delight, Soto. I picked it over the other snacks that I couldn't read purely for the cuttlefish that looks excited to be eaten. On the packet it is referred to as a "cuttlefish flavoured snack." Whilst the corner says it is oriental, the writing below is undeniably Arabic in nature, and above the words Soto, is written stuff in Malay? According to a quick google search, its a Malaysian made food with Oriental being the actual brand. The more you know.

Why so happy to be eaten little guy?

I mightily struggled to open the packet at all, and ended up shredding it down the middle. The pictures as always, look much better than the actual product. With the photo on the front, they look like pork rinds a bit, or golden brown diamond scored squid pieces. What I actually pull out resembles, for the most part, indistinct pale blobs of different shapes and sizes with maybe one or two actually resembling the picture.

Close enough

That being said, they are sort of tasty? They have that very distinctive dried cuttlefish taste, a very sorta fishy taste that is only in the pieces themselves, not in the actual powder that most Western chips would have. They have a nice little crunch and have a weird aftertaste. I'm pretty sure the aftertaste is the flavouring they used, which according to the packet is, "Cuttlefish seasoning, contains permitted flavour enhancer (monosodium glutamate)", good ol' MSG. All in all, I've had worse, I've eaten a packet of fried chicken flavoured corn snacks from an Asian supermarket and drank an expired can of orange pulp water when I was a lot younger. So for $1.10 and no eventual food poisoning, it wasn't bad.

Borat is great for expressing emotions

On the other hand, I've never been much of a fan of Hazel Tea. I never find they have anything particularly standout in their tea selection, with the usual syrups, sugar shots and toppings that all the other tea brands have. I did find a really fantastic strawberry and lychee combo at some stores, but I might be confusing that with Tea Etc or EasyWay who knows. My sister has always liked Hazel Tea, cause it panders to uni students by allowing them to linger out of the cold, and play board games as long as they buy a drink. Sorta like reverse hobos. She also says their pearls are one of the best out of the chain shops, chewy, firm and they don't tend to disintegrate while being eaten or left for too long.

She ordered her usual apple green tea and pearls with half strength sugar. She ordered on my behalf off their new winter menu, taro milk tea with red beans, also with half strength sugar. The tea was acceptable, nothing crash hot but the red beans are possibly the worst I've ever had ever. But firstly, a little history on red beans, for any Westerners reading.

Not malena. Actually tasty red beans.
Might have ruined red beans for Dr. H

Red beans, like taro, are frequently sweetened in most Asian cultures and used for a variety of sweet snacks. The beans are normally cooked in a sugary water until soft and mashed before being used. In Chinese culture, a common free dessert finisher to meals would be a sweet red bean soup and used in moon cakes as the sweet paste inside. Japanese culture would make dango, a rice flour and red bean paste dumpling on a stick or even taiyaki, a fish shaped pastry stuffed with red bean paste. Vietnamese culture shares a lot with Chinese culture, so we often use it as a topping for che ba mau, literally three coloured dessert, different sweet toppings like edible seaweed, red beans, kidney beans, sweet corn, jelly, cendol noodles, coconut milk and ice.

Che ba mao

Disgusting mooncakes.

TAIYAKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

So for Asians, sweet red beans are totally normal, I really can't think of too many Western dishes where they would utilise a bean for both a sweet and a savoury dish. To me at least, lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas and all those fun pulses are strictly savoury food, which may be why white people look at me weird when I say taro milk tea is delicious with red beans. Anyway, therein lies the problem.

These beans were terrible because they were cooked until slightly soft and were completely unsweetened. It was a shock, I'll tell you that much. I have no idea if this was an omission, or if this was normal for Hazel Tea or just a weird once off, cause VGirl bought it for me as half strength sugar. Either way I drank all the tea and discarded the beans when I got home, THE BEST PART WASTED ;w;

Lastly, after a heated conversation on FB and IRL. Vgirl told me JGirl really wanted G. as a nickname on my blog. Unfortunately single letters have thus far been used for all my work friends, which JGirl is not. Sorry JGirl ): Shishi discovered my blog and my FB food reviews. He has volunteered to be my chauffeur and fellow food adventurer, which is fantastic cause my other food adventurer friends all seem to have dietary annoyances like eating halal, being vegetarians, being on diets or being coeliacs. Shishi eats as much as I do, loves meat and understands why paying extra for good food warrants paying extra. Great success.

Also VGirl and I saw this on the way home. We loled. Its like someone with a lisp swore at me.

Pad Thai Party!

Woo pad thai party for two! This is the second time this year I've thrown one, once again the turn out is terrible. The last one was around April if I remember correctly? It was a pad thai party with sizzler cheese toast for afterwards since I learnt the recipe for that too. I think only like three of my friends dropped by ):. Dr H, JGirl and Taka. None of my usual food party friends dropped by like Shishi and Yanikins, they were all either doing stuff and so a lot of food was thrown at people to be disposed of.

An unusual side effect was that for the month after, we kept having to go to Thai places with friends cause they missed out. We went out for Yanikin's birthday at Chat Thai in Market Square and he ordered Pad Thai. Dr H promptly ate parts of Yanikin's and said that mine was better. Apparently I got rave reviews from my dad, Dr H's parents and JGirl's parents, all of whom ate their children's pad thai before they woke up from their food comas.

"I found it in my fridge and I don't know where it came from but it was delicious."
Direct quote from Dr H's parents

Same as last time, I kept getting hassled at work for not inviting people to my pad thai night. Apparently I keep picking days when people aren't working, or just started working or days they have stuff on. That's not my fault guys, that's your own stuff you have to deal with and maybe you should buy my ingredients like I suggested and then I could hold a pad thai party at your house? Last time the damage was about, $30? I'm poor but even that's not bad, considering I filled 10 large Chinese food containers with pad thai. This isn't including all the stuff we ate on the day.

Stuff I actually had to go out and buy:
Woolies - blue elephant brand pad thai noodles x 2 - $2.50?
1kg Chicken drumsticks - $4
1kg fish tofu - $10
500g prawn skewers I found in my freezer - possibly $6
1/2kg of bean sprouts - I have no idea what this costs, but I'm going to guess $1-4? Since 250g is $1.50?
Garlic chives from my dad's garden

Pantry staples:
Actual garlic cloves
Onions
Roasted Peanuts
Eggs
My pad thai sauce made from tamarind, fish sauce and sugar that I had in my house


J. from work suggested that I drop by and give her some leftovers for her dinner at work. I'm pretty sure I just laughed at her and said, I didn't like her enough to do that, since I don't drive and G, who is coming over, wouldn't be near there when she was going home either. J. also laughed and said that she was thinking of saying, "I would totally drive all the way to your house to give you pad thai leftovers!" Then she also realised that she probably wouldn't and also didn't like me enough to do that. I'm pretty sure I laughed before saying, THIS IS A GAME OF LIES, and stormed off, to her immense amusement. We're good friends, J and I.

Yeah. Friends.

Anyway, this time I've only got eggs and chicken as my main proteins for my pad thai. I've also played around with the sauce recipe too, since I didn't feel like it was sour enough last time. I've also made a new tag called, "Terrible Instructions," the terrible instructions tag will be used whenever I leave terrible Asian instructions to do things. Simple enough right? The Asian was left out in case people become offended and forget I'm Vietnamese. I'll use this tag for when I make food according to Terrible Asian instructions, which are terrible, vague cooking instructions where everything is, "enough for one handful of beans," "enough oil to coat the pan," or even "use three bowls of the small bowls that we use for rice, filled with flour".

The International Standardised Measurement:
1 Rice Bowl, equal to 1 European/American/Australia cup

What are these vague bullshit instructions. Their quantities are utterly subjective to their local kitchen, illogical and their determinations of what should be an approximate amount are eye gouging inducing terrible. This is the kind of instruction I grew up with, its no wonder I'm acopic at life and baking. My father would hate going to beaches with people cause the instruction would basically be:

"We're heading to the beach."
"Which beach is that?"
"That one we go to all the time."

One of the beaches we go to

Another beach we go to

We go to this one, alllllllll the time

Dude, we were here just last week

This one?

He hated that, especially since we never drove in front and we frequented about six beaches, some of which we had to take a ferry to go to. Those pictures are all from the beaches I even remember the names of, there's probably more that I don't know the name of, major points if you can name all these popular beaches. So he raised us not to do it. However when it comes driving instructions:

"YOU HAVE TO BE MORE OVER HERE!" Whilst pointing vaguely.
"WHICH WAY IS HERE." Shouted the Asian daughter.
"HERE, HERE." Car stalls/car curbs it/angry car honks.
"GET OUT OF THE CAR, I'LL SHOW YOU HOW TO DO IT."

I TOLD YOU TO GO OVER HERE.
Obviously not my dad, he has a moustache.

My dad wasn't the only one though, my mother did the same thing. I once asked her how to make congee. "You put the chicken in a pot. Fill it up with water. Cook it. Put rice in and cook it. Put salt in and that's congee." My aunt laughed at her, and my mother couldn't understand why she was laughing.

Pad Thai Sauce:

Pad thai sauce

Uses: Pad thai. Duh. Stinking out your neighbours.

Ingredients:
Fish Sauce
White Sugar, palm sugar is a pain to melt
Tamarind pulp in hot water. Alternatively tamarind soup base or a tamarind concentrate is fine too.
Hot chilli powder

I figure the same proportions as Vietnamese Nuoc Mam cham. So 1:1:1 for sugar, tamarind pulp and fish sauce. Then balance to taste. Mine is noticeably sour, with a salt hit and a bit of sweetness to it, with a final back burn of chilli. For the purpose of this recipe, we'll say a cup. I have no actual idea of what measurement I used, I literally used a ladle that I later found out contained 40mls. No idea how much tamarind pulp water I ended up using.

Instructions:

1. Soak the tamarind pulp in a tiny amount of hot water, basically the same amount of water as your fish sauce/sugar. Don't worry if you add too much.

Tamarind in block form. 

2. Measure out your other stuff
3. Using clean hands, squeeze the pulp and seeds off the water and mix until its an oddly warm and slightly thick mixture. It should be face wrinkly sour and have that distinctive tamarind tang. Strain and discard pulp.

The seeds and pulp

3.a See if you can measure out that much, if it looks like a ridiculously huge amount you can do what I did and evaporate some of it off in a large saucepan. More surface area, faster evaporation ; )

Yes. Yes, burn my pretty.

4. Mix all three together! It should have distinct notes of all three, sour, salty and sweet.
5. Add chilli powder to taste. Mine was weak, so I added about a tablespoon.

Noting that this mixture of ingredients doesn't make a particularly dark sauce when cooking. I read some recipes that added some tomato sauce, or paprika for colouring purposes. I will experiment with that later. In my earlier attempts at pad thai making, I actually cooked off this sauce for a thicker consistency, cooking fish sauce should only be done during the week day, in a well ventilated space and wafted into the direction of your enemies. The syrupy state of the tamarind pulp in this recipe was similar to my other attempt but I still felt it was too thin a sauce.

Pad Thai Recipe:

Pad thai.

Uses: creates jealously in friends, fresh to order party food, dinner

Ingredients:
400-500g chicken - I used the meat off two large maryland pieces, the drumstick and thigh portion
250g of pad thai or banh pho noodles. They're exactly the same thing, they're both made of rice flour, salt and water and the same length and width.
100g bean sprouts
20-50g garlic chives, normal chives can be substituted, but food snobs like me will know the difference.
An egg for each portion you cook off.
One large onion, cut into whatever shape you fancy for noodles
4-6 diced cloves of garlic
Smashed up peanuts
Portion of the above pad thai sauce.

Assorted stuff you need:
A large saucepan or wok
Lots of small bowls to store ingredients
Cooking oil
A square of folded up paper towel and a plate to rest it on
A ladle for getting out the sauce
****A gas burner or induction stove top***
Just stop reading this recipe if you don't have a gas burner or induction stove top. Fire works well too.

Optional ingredients:
Fish tofu
Raw prawns
Pickled radish
Dried prawns
Squid
Octopus
Banana flower
Chillis
Whatever protein floats your boat man

Instructions:

Prepare everything ahead of cooking or you will regret it. This isn't a recipe you can prepare things as you go. Have it all set up and ready for cooking.

1. Cut the chicken into smallish lumps, 2-3cm bite sized pieces. Place in a bowl of water with about 2 tablespoons of salt so it can brine up. Brining helps makes things deliciously infused with salt as well as tender. Place in fridge until ready to cook
2. Cook the noodles in boiling water until just before al dente. They'll cook more in the heat. Drain off and continue prepping.
3.. Cut the onion up into either large wedges or thin rings, depending on how much you like the appearance of onion in your noodles. Place in a bowl or plate
4. Finely dice all the garlic. Place in a bowl or plate.
5. Wash the bean sprouts and place on a plate.
6. Wash, trim and cut the garlic/ chives into10cmish pieces, put it on the same plate as the bean sprouts
7. Gather your eggs and a spare bowl to crack and mix them into
8. Drain off the chicken and place it in a different bowl. Arrange all the ingredients so that onions and garlic are closest to you, then the proteins, the sauce, the noodles and finally the bean sprouts/chives.

Super important set up!

ACTUAL COOKING INSTRUCTIONS VITAL TO NOODLES

1. Turn your gas/stove/whatever onto high, wait until it get hot to the palm of your hand
2. Season your wok or saucepan with a small amount of oil. Pour the oil everywhere, and then wipe it off. Let it steam for a few seconds and then pour some more oil in for cooking.
3. Allow the oil to heat up and throw in about 30g of onions, don't measure it out. Just grab a handful
4. Once the onions have started smelling delicious/softened slightly, throw in about a tablespoon of diced garlic

5. Keep stirring until the garlic browns, throw in your proteins. The longer it takes, the earlier it should go in. Chicken in this recipe goes in first.
6. Once the chicken is just sealed throw in about one ladleful 40-50 mls, 1/4th of a cup of pad thai sauce
7. Throw in your egg, in a dry/clean well, mix like a madman. Cook until dryish. Alternatively, swap 6 and 7 around.

8. Throw in your seafood. Prawns will literally take seconds, as well squid, octopus and fish tofu just needs to be reheated
9. Throw in handfuls of bean sprouts, garlic chives and one fistful of noodles.
10. Toss briefly until coated. Add further sauce, but beware the pale colour. No one wants soggy pad thai noodles.
11. Dump on a plate once the garlic chives have wilted, garnish with crushed peanuts.
12. Repeat 3-11 until all the ingredients are used up. Don't attempt to make a huge batch, you won't be able to handle it and it won't be tasty.
^ all the above will take about 3-7 minutes on a high temperature. Or about 5-10 minutes on a high medium. That's why its vital to arrange things beforehand.

After the pad thai party. G and I went to the dog park where a rip roaring good time was had by all. Dexter, G. and A.'s dog, fell in love with Ben, a giant white German Shepard to everyone's amusement. Super thanks to G. who didn't tell my dog park crush that I had a crush on him, although she knew who it was once she knew who his dog was. Hahaha, the voice of discretion.

Stock

The definition of stock as a noun according to the wonderful Dictionary.com, is:


General:
1. A quality of something accumulated, as for future use
Stocks:
1. a former instrument of punishment consisting of a framework with holes for securing the ankles and,sometimes, the wrists, used to expose an offender to public derision
And lastly relevant in its wholesome cooking sense
Cookery:
The liquor or broth prepared by boiling meat, fish,chicken, etc., with or without vegetables or seasonings, and used especially as a foundation for soups and sauces.


How do these definitions even link together? And why am I even bothering to start a post like this? Well last night I was eating a chicken and peanut soup for dinner, the recipe for which is at the bottom of this page, anyway my friend saw it and she asked if she could have some. She has her own recipe and apparently made this recipe all the time and wanted to see what I had done with it. She said it was much than hers, sweeter from the sweet potato and a lot creamier too. I also mentioned that the recipe was super weird, cause it specified that you had to use chicken on the bone for the extra added flavour or more specifically a stewing hen. That's where the trouble started.0


She was grossed out and said that she had no idea why I would eat something made out of bones, blood and other gross stuff. Whilst I argued why WOULDN'T you eat that, its freaking delicious. Where is the delicious in soups and junk, IN THE BONES. THE BONESSSSS. It got pretty nasty.


After we came back to work, I wrote her the recipe and then we started asking other nurses what they did. We ended up having about half, half of opinions, with half the nurses using real store bought stock, stock powder and then the fancy people like me, making their own stock from bones.The fight was intense and took most of the rest of the shift in between actual working. All the nurses were asked, and some of the patients too. H-Dizzle said he used bones, N. used store real stock, B. used store stock, Angie used real stock as did her patient, I use my own stock and lastly Di who I was arguing with, used organic stock cubes.


This is my mega rant on why stock is amazing though.


Your basic home made stock is the wonderful foundation for all your cooking, a good bit of well made stock is perfect for extra flavour in soups, sauces, stir fries, risottos, stews. casseroles, anything in your slow cooker and much more. Stock can be used anywhere in a recipe where it would call for water to top up in a savoury dish. Your stock adds a superb depth of flavour and mellow mouth feel to your dishes, whilst intensifying the flavour due to the concentration of your stock without having to resort to adding other things. Without a good foundation, how can you make anything delicious?


Stock is easy to make, although some argue it can be time consuming. For a basic white stock from uncooked bones, you basically collect a whole bunch of bones over time or purchase chicken frames or carcasses, necks or feet. Just remember to wash them off, defeather and clip the nails on feet. Collect all the weedy vegetables in your fridge, top and tail and scrub them, onions, your choice of seasoning hard herbs and plunk them into water. Simmer in a large stock pot for at least 3 hours, or over days. Skim off the scum and fat as needed, either whilst cooking or when its cooking down and solidifying into white fat. Feel free to stop and start as required if heading off to work, just watch out for hot weather where all your stock could sour quite quickly. Alternatively for brown stock, roast the bones for extra flavour and do all the above. The longer you simmer the richer and more intense the flavour.


However some may argue making stock is a form of torture. The smell of your house is inundated by the rich, savoury odours of your fragrant stock, weirdly delicious I know, but each to their own. I actually have a a work friend who can't stand her slow cooker as she finds it distracting to be a house that smells like food, if she can't eat it for several hours. Some of my friends also complained that it took too long to do, which is weird considering that you just ignore stock until it cools down.


Chicken and peanut soup


Ingredients:
500g chicken


1L of CHICKEN BONE stock


100-500g of sweet potato


Optional: 100-200g of spinach


Optional: 50-100g of red capsicum


Optional: 1-2 carrots


Optional: 100-200g potatoes


1 can of diced tomatoes

2 large brown onions


2-4 cloves of diced garlic


1 cup of peanut butter


1 cup of roasted peanuts


1 hot chilli


Lots of white/black pepper






1. Brown off chicken. Put elsewhere.


2. Brown onions and garlic


3. Add in chicken, and then all your veggies.


4. Skim off scum and fat. Discard


5. Add all the peanuts and peanut butter once the vegetables have cooked


6. Add the chillis and white pepper to taste. It should be a really 


spicy/peppery soup!