I'm addicted to kimchi fried rice for a couple of months now. I want to eat it for breakfast every day. Yes, breakfast. Nothing better than spicy food to kick start the metabolic rate. So spicy that I have to eat with my mouth open. Here's a little fun fact- chilli can increase metabolic rate by up to 25%. So bring on the kimchi and throw in a few tablespoons of gojujan (aka korean chilli paste) for good measure.

Well actually, I'm kidding about the tablespoons of gojujan. I recommend starting with 1 teaspoon first, and increase the amount to the level of spiciness that you prefer.

Kimchi fried rice is usually served with fried egg on top, but I prefer it with poached egg.




Kimchi Fried Rice
Serves 1

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 cup kimchi, roughly chopped
1 bowl cooked overnight japanese (short grain) rice
1 teaspoon gochujan
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup spring onion, chopped
1 tablespoon white sesame seeds
1 egg, fried or poached

Heat the oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Stir-fry the onions and garlic for 1 minute, or until the onions is translucent. Add kimchi and rice, stir-fry and gently break up any lumps of rice, cook for 1 minute or until rice has warmed through. Add gochujan, soy sauce, sesame oil and sugar. Stir through to combine. Remove wok from heat, add spring onion and sesame seeds, stir through to combine.

Transfer to a serving bowl. Serve with fried or poached egg.

I guess you can say this is a healthy-ish lasagna. One serve of this will probably meet the much hyped about daily vegetable requirement. I have also opted to sprinkle cheese only on the top layer to make it less “fatty”. If you are not too concern about your calories intake (lucky you!), go crazy and sprinkle as much cheese as you like between each layer. And did I mention about the calories that you will burn from the good 10 minutes of vigorous kneading. That’s exercise for the day sorted. Win-win, I say.

Each piece of the pasta was lovingly rolled by hand using the good old trusty rolling pin, which goes to show that pasta machine is not a necessity. I have to give myself a pat on the back for a job well done.




Mushroom and Spinach Lasagna

Makes 20cm x 26cm lasagna. Serves 4-6.

Spinach Pasta
300 grams spinach, thoroughly washed
3 eggs
400 grams plain flour
pinch of salt

Bechamel Sauce
900 ml full cream milk
100 grams butter
100 grams plain flour
1 teaspoon salt (season with more or less salt to your taste)
4 anchovies, finely chopped (optional but highly recommend)

You will also need:
Roughly 800 grams of mixed mushrooms, thinly sliced (I used 200 grams king oyster mushrooms, 200 grams oyster mushrooms, 200 grams shimeji mushrooms and 200 grams brown mushrooms)
Roughly 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
Olive oil (or truffle oil)

To make spinach pasta:
Drizzle about 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan on high heat. When pan is hot, put as much spinach as will fit into the pan, constantly stirring. When spinach starts to wilt, keep adding more spinach until it is all in. Put spinach into a bowl and leave to cool.

As soon as spinach is cool enough to handle, squeeze out as much of the water as you can. Puree the spinach in a blender, then mix with the eggs.

Place the flour on a clean work surface and make a well in the centre. Pour spinach and eggs mixture into the well and add a pinch of salt. Use your fingers to gradually bring in the flour from the sides. Continue stirring and kneading until flour is well-incorporated. At this stage, if the dough still seems too wet and sticky, gradually add more flour (I found that I need an additional 1/4 cup of flour).

Wash your hands and dry them well. Now it is time to start kneading. Sprinkle some extra flour on the work surface, knead the dough with the heel of your hands until the surface of the dough feels satin-smooth and elastic. Basically, you need to push the heel of your hand away from you and through the dough to stretch it. Then fold the elongated dough back on itself and rotate the dough ball by a quarter turn and knead again. Keep doing this until the dough gets that silky-smooth feeling. This will take about 10 minutes.

Wrap the pasta dough in cling wrap and let it rest for a minimum of 20 minutes at room temperature away from draughts. (While the dough is resting, start making bechamel sauce.)

Now the dough is ready to rolled in the pasta machine or with a rolling pin. Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces and roll dough down to about the thickness of a playing cut. Cut into rectangles to fit the size of your baking dish.

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, then add some salt and a few drops of olive oil. Cook the pasta rectangles 1 at time for 1 minute. Lift them out using tongs or a large slotted spoon. Then lay them on tea towels to dry.

To make bechamel sauce:
Heat the milk in a saucepan just until a few bubbles start to appear on the surface, then remove from the heat.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Add the flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon and making sure that the flour does not colour. Remove from the heat and slowly add the hot milk a little at a time, stirring constantly to stop lumps from forming. When all the milk has been amalgamated, place the sauce back over low heat, season with salt and cook, stirring continuously, until the mixture has the consistency of thick cream. Mix in anchovies.

To assemble the lasagna:
Preheat the oven to 200 degree celcius (or 180 degree celcius fan-forced).

Spread some of the bechamel sauce in the bottom of the baking dish. Arrange a piece of pasta on top, then more sauce, then the mushrooms, drizzle over olive oil (or truffle oil). Repeat 2 more times, layering pasta, sauce, mushrooms and oil. Top with a final piece of pasta and sauce, and sprinkle with the parmesan.

Bake the lasagna for 30 minutes, or until the top is browned. Remove from the oven and leave to rest for about 10 minutes.

I can’t get enough of this crispy pizza-like “pancake” with savoury filling of minced beef, silverbeet and feta cheese. It is simply delicious. I used marinated feta cheese for added flavour. Any type of feta cheese will just be as good. And if silverbeet is not available, replace it with spinach instead.





Gozleme
(Adapted from Taste)

(Makes 4)

For the pastry dough
250ml warm water
415 grams plain flour (more flour may be required, see instructions below.)
7 grams dried yeast
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

For the filling
1 small brown onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
400 grams lean beef mince
300 grams silverbeet (or spinach)
1 tablespoon olive oil
100 grams feta, crumbled

You will also need olive oil and lemon.

Combine warm water, yeast and sugar in a jug. Whisk to dissolve yeast. Stand in a warm place for 10 minutes or until frothy. (Note: You can skip this step if you are using instant dried yeast. Instead, mix the instant dried yeast and sugar together with the dry ingredients.)

In the bowl of your stand mixer with the dough hook, combine flour and salt. Add yeast mixture and olive oil. Mix at low speed until the dough sticks to the hook and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 10 minutes. You should get a very pliable elastic tacky dough that is not overly sticky. (Note: If the dough does not pull away from the sides of the bowl after 10 minutes, the dough is too sticky. Add 1/4 cup of flour, and continue to beat for 5 minutes.)

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl. Cover bowl with cling wrap and stand in a warm place until dough doubles in size, about 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic to pan. Cook, stirring, until onion has softened. Add mince. Cook, stirring until browned. Add silverbeet. Cook, stirring, until silverbeet has wilted and mince is cooked. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Divide dough into 4 equal portions. Lightly flour work bench and rolling pin. Roll 1 piece into a rectangle shape (roughly 32cm x 20cm), or as thin as possible. Place a quarter of the filling over one half of rectangle and crumble feta over filling. Fold dough over to enclose filling. Press edges together to seal. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.

Heat a frying pan over low to medium heat. Brush one side of gozleme with oil. Cook until base is golden. Brush uncooked side using remaining oil. Turn over. Cook until golden and crisp. Transfer to a board. Cut each gozleme into slices. Serve with lemon wedges.

I don’t like gnocchi any other way then pan-fried until it’s crispy on the outside and still soft and light on the inside. I don’t like it smothered in fancy sauce or even dressed in pesto, thank you very much. Just pan-fried crispy golden pillows of goodness paired with sweet caramelised roasted pumpkin, and perhaps drizzled over ever so slightly with sage browned butter.

This is definitely not a quick easy meal for the weekday. It takes time to prepare and may require some practice. I tried the “fresh” gnocchi that can be purchase from the refrigerated section in the shops. However, those commercial packaged gnocchi are heavy and doughy, and sit like rocks in my stomach for hours. I guarantee that once you master making gnocchi, you will never go back to store-brought stuff again.

A tip to getting light fluffy gnocchi is to resist the urge to add more flour to the gnocchi dough. The dough is often sticky, but pliable enough to shape into a log. If not, keep adding a little flour at a time until you get soft pliable dough.

An interesting fact about royal blue potatoes that I learned while making this gnocchi dish- the skin of the royal blue potatoes changes from blue to a normal potato brown after it’s being baked in the oven. Wow. Fascinating. I didn’t know that…

Gnocchi and Roast Pumpkin and Sage
(Adapted from Matt Moran when I get home)

half a butternut pumpkin (I used japanese pumpkin), peeled, seeded and cut into 1cm dice
30 ml olive oil
salt and pepper
30 grams butter, diced
1/2 bunch sage, leaves picked
parmesan, grated

Gnocchi
rock salt, for baking
1.5 kg pontiac potatoes (I used royal blue)
150 grams plain flour
2 egg yolks
salt
extra virgin olive oil, for tossing

Preheat the oven to 180 degree celcius fan force. Place pumpkin on a baking tray lined with baking paper and spray with olive oil spray. Cook for 20 minutes or until tender and caramelise. Remove to a plate, set aside and cover to keep warm.

To prepare the gnocchi, spread a layer of rock salt on a baking tray and place the potates on top. Bake for about 40 minutes until the potatoes are tender (I baked the potatoes at the same time as the pumpkin). Scrape out the soft flesh, mash it, then pass through a sieve. Add the flour, egg yolks and a good pinch of salt and work into a dough on the benchtop. Roll the dough into a sausage shape (approximately 2cm in diameter) and cut into 2cm pieces.



Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil, add the gnocchi and cook until they rise to the surface (this will only takes a minute or so). Remove the gnocchi with a slotted spoon and refresh in iced water. Drain, then toss with a little olive oil.

Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan, add the gnocchi and season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat until the gnocchi is golden, then remove. In the same pan, stir in the diced butter until it starts to turn a nutty brown colour, then add the sage and remove from the heat.

To serve, arrange the gnocchi and pumpkin on plate. Drizzle the butter over the top and garnish with the sage leaves and freshly grated parmesan.

This creamy mushroom risotto is so luxurious, hearty and favoursome. I used 5 different type of mushrooms; porcini, swiss, shiitake, oyster and hou-chimeji, and a good dizzle of truffle oil at the end. The mushrooms give the dish a nice nutty favour and the truffle oil adds on an unique earthy favour.

You don't have to use truffle oil. It just so happen that I have a small bottle of truffle oil which I purchase out of impulse at the Manudaring Truffle Festival about two years ago. And it has been sitting at the back of my pantry since. Please don't judge me... the expire date, or what I would like to call the "best used by date", of the truffle oil is July 2011. But it will be such a shame to throw it away. The truffle oil does give a different dimension to the favour of the dish (no, it's not because the truffle oil has past it's best used by date).

You can use any mushrooms, but avoid button mushrooms if you can.

Mushroom Risotto (recipe adapted from Jamie Oliver Grilled Mushroom Risotto)
Serves 2

Ingredient
1.5 litres hot chicken stock
10 gram dried porcini mushrooms
1 tablespoon olive oi
20g butter 
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 cup of risotto (arborio) rice
150ml white wine
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 large handfuls of mushrooms (I used a mixture of swiss mushroom, shiitake, oyster and hou-chimeji), cleaned and sliced
Juice of half lemon
1 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra for serving
Drizzle of truffle oil (optional)

Bring the stock to the boil in a saucepan. Reduce heat and keep at a gentle simmer.

Place the porchini mushrooms in a bowl and pour in just enough hot stock to cover. Leave for a couple of minutes until they've softened. Fish them out of the stock and chop them, reserving the soaking liquid.


Heat butter and 1 tablespoonful of the olive oil in a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until soft without colouring them. Add the rice and stir for 2 minutes or until grains appear slightly glassy.

Add the wine to the rice and keep stiring until liquid is completely absorbed. Now pour the porcini soaking liquid through a sieve into the pan and add the chopped porcini, a good pinch of salt and first ladle of hot stock. Turn the heat down so the rice doesn't cook to quickly on the outside.


Keep adding ladlefuls of stock, stirring and massaging the starch out of the rice, allowing each ladleful to be absorbed before adding the next. Carry on adding stock until the rice is tender yet firm to the bite and risotto is creamy. This will take about 30 minutes. If you run out of stock before the rice is cooked, add some boiling water.


Meanwhile, get a dry griddle pan hot and grill the mushrooms until soft. If your pan isn’t big enough, do this in batches. Put them into a bowl and add a pinch of salt and the lemon juice and toss everything together.



Take the risotto off the heat and season to taste. Stir in the butter and the Parmesan. You want it to be creamy and oozy in texture, so add a bit more stock if you think it needs it. Put a lid on and leave the risotto to rest for about 3 minutes.


Serve risotto topped with some grilled dressed mushrooms, a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan and a drizzle of truffle oil.

I have been craving for the Baked Eggs with Chorizo at the Tiger Tiger Coffee Bar lately. Unfortunately they only served that for breakfast, which means that I have to either wake up super early to go there for breakfast before work or take an early lunch (aka mid morning) break. Both options are not so great for me.

So I decided to try and make my own. I'm actually quite pleased with the result, which tasted almost similar, if not the same, as the original thing. I definitely will be making this again.


Baked Eggs with Chorizo
Serves 2
1 chorizo sausage, cut in slices
1 tbs olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
400g can italian peeled whole tomatoes
4 eggs

1. Mash sliced sausage with a fork.
2. Heat oil in pan, and cook onion and garlic until soft.
3. Add tomato and bring to boil.
4. Reduce heat to low and stir in sausage.
5. Cook until mixture reduces and thickens.
6. Season with salt.
7. Preheat oven to 180C.
8. Divide tomato mixture among 2 ovenproof remekins or tapas dishes.
9. Carefully crack 2 eggs over top.
10. Bake until eggs are just set.
11. Serve with bread.