Red Curry Fish Cakes

I love Asian food - just in case you hadn't noticed. I love Asian flavours - crisp, fresh, fragrant and clean. I don't take a bite of a SE Asian dish and have to think and analyse what 20 odd ingredients have gone into my mouthful. One of the reasons I love Thai food is it's pure simplicity, and the combination of flavours are traditional and make sense...

ingredients that grow together - go together!

I catered a friends birthday party recently and these Thai fish cakes barely made it out of the kitchen, teamed with a tomato chile jam, they were a hit. They also make a fabulous midweek dinner combined with a simple salad.

For my Doha friends, Thai Basil is available at Megamart, they get their Asian vegetables in on a Thursda, so Friday is a great time to shop. It's sold by weight, so don't be afraid to to open the bag and pull out a small handful of leaves.

Thai Fish Cakes

Use the freshest fish you can in this, and change around the flavours to suit what you have and what you like.The fishcakes are moderately (popularly) spicy, if you like extra spice, add in some chopped chile.

• 500 grams firm boneless white fish, chopped into bite sized pieces
• 2 teaspoons red curry paste
• 1 teaspoon cornflour
• 2 spring onions, chopped finely
• 1/4 cup thai basil chopped finely
• 1/4 cup coriander leaves, chopped finely
• 1 clove garlic, chopped finely
• 1/3 cup coconut milk
• juice of half a lime
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• oil for shallow frying, or a spray of oil to bake in the oven

Method

1. Combine the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the ingredients come together but you can still see lovely lumps of fish. Alternatively, chop fish finely and combine with the rest of the ingredients.
2. Form the mixture into 3cm balls - the mixture will be sticky, so use wet hands to form the mixture into balls. Flatten.
3. Either cook in an oven at 400 degrees fahrenheit (200 degrees celcius) for 10 minutes, turning once during cooking, or heat 1cm vegetable oil in a frying pan on moderate heat, and fry the fishcakes for 2 minutes, then turn over and fry for 2 minutes more.
4. Drain and serve.

Foccacia Bread

We had friends over for a barbeque last week and to complement the grilled meats and salads I'd put together, I made fresh foccacia bread. Served warm straight from the oven, it was a fabulous complement, delicately fragrant, and deliciously tasty. I can and have eaten a half loaf of this bread standing in the kitchen having just pulled it out of the oven.

You can top a foccacia bread with whatever toppings you fancy - olive oil, is of course, compulsary. I'm a big fan of coarse sea salt and fresh rosemary, and if I'm organised, I roast a garlic bulb in the oven while the bread is cooking and then squeeze the garlic all over the freshly baked hot bread - yummmmm!

Foccacia Bread

2 teaspoons dried yeast

1 cup warm water

1 tablespoon sugar

3 1/2 cups flour (plus extra if needed)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup olive oil

Topping

 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt

olive oil to drizzle (about 2 tablespoons)

Method

1. Mix the warm water and sugar together, sprinkle yeast on top and stir briefly. Set aside for 5 minutes until yeast is activated and starting to froth.
2. In a bowl, mix together flour and salt, add olive oil and yeast mixture and stir together. Turn onto a floured bench and pull together and start to knead. Add more flour if the mixture is too sticky. Knead for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. (I'm going to be honest, I pop mine into my mixer with a dough hook and let it do the kneading for 10 minutes)
3. Pop the dough into an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and leave for 1 hour in a warm place to rise.
4. Punch the dough down, roll into a oblong, pop onto a baking tray and stretch to fit the tray, poke holes in the dough and drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle sea salt and rosemary over the top and leave to rise for 15 minutes.
5. Bake at 200 degrees celcius (400 degrees fahrenheit) for 15 to 20 minutes until golden. Serve warm if possible.

Thai Prawn & Pomelo Salad

I love Pomelo, a big fat green citrus fruit with pink flesh. It is close to a grapefruit in taste, but is sweeter and drier in texture, and it is amazing in salads as it soaks up the flavours of the sauces and herbs really well.

Hubby though is not a fan, so I don't get to make this salad often. I had a more adventurous friend coming over for lunch so I took the opportunity to make it.

In Thailand this salad is called Yam Som-O. I have played around with the ingredients so much over the years that I'm sure this varies from the traditional salad, but it still tastes great.

The combination of fresh herbs, sweet sugar and coconut, sour lime and tamarind, the spicy red chillies and the chewy texture of the prawns and pomelo create a stunning dish both in flavour and looks.

I like to serve this salad warm, but it is equally nice served at room temperature - everything can be prepared in advance and combined at the last minute before serving, just take the prawns out of the fridge 15 minutes before serving to come to room temperature.

You can also make this salad with crabmeat if you don't fancy prawns.


Prawn and Pomelo Salad
(serves 4 as an appetiser)

• 300 grams prawns, peeled and deveined
• 20 grams dried shrimp, crushed (optional)
• 1 medium pomelo, pith removed and shredded
• 1/2 cup coriander leaves
• 1 or 2 red chillies, de-seeded and sliced
• 2 shallots, sliced (or 2 spring onions, sliced)
• 2 tablespoons dessicated coconut, toasted in a dry pan to golden brown

Dressing

• 100 mls tamarind concentrate
• 40 grams palm sugar (or brown sugar if you don't have palm sugar)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 30 mls lime juice (juice of 2 or 3 limes)

Method

1. Soak the shallot slices in water for 5 minutes (this removes the pungent onion taste), drain well.
2. Put the dressing ingredients into a pot, and bring to the boil, stir until sugar has dissolved and then simmer gently for 3 minutes to thicken. Set aside to cool.
3. Bring a pot of water to the boil and add the prawns, poach for a minute or two until they are opaque and pink. Leave to cool if you want to serve your salad cold.
4. Combine prawns, dried shrimp, pomelo, shallots and coconut
5. Add dressing to taste, it will not need all of the dressing. Serve on individual plates and sprinkle with coriander and chillies.

Hot Cross Buns

I know, I know, it's a bit late for an Easter recipe, but it was the first time I'd ever made these gems, they tasted fabulous, and look so scrumptious, that I just couldn't resist sharing the recipe.

I woke up one morning and quite fancied a hot cross bun (as you do around Easter time). Unfortunately the only two places in Doha I'd found that made them, made a very poor rendition - too bready, not enough fruit or spices, and the deal-breaker...no rich sticky sweet glaze.

So I googled and found a fabulous recipe on taste.com.au and gave them a whirl. I didn't have mixed spice, so I made my own - mix together 1 teaspoon ground allspice, 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground cloves, 1 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg and a pinch of ground black pepper.

I've just made a batch of the dough and it's happily rising on the bench, I'll just leave off the cross and have them as plain fruit buns instead.

Hot Cross Buns

1 tablespoon dried yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

185ml (3/4 cup) warm milk

125ml (1/2 cup) cold milk

50g butter, melted

1 egg, lightly whisked

525g (3 1/2 cups) plain flour

200g mixed dried fruit (I used sultanas, currants and some mixed peel) 

70g (1/3 cup) caster sugar

2 teaspoons mixed spice

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 

A pinch of salt

Flour paste - 1/2 cup plain flour + 75mls water

Glaze - 1/3 cup water + 2 tablespoons caster sugar 

Method

1. Whisk yeast, sugar and the 3/4 cup of warm milk in a jug. Set aside for 10 minutes or until frothy. Whisk in the 1/2 cup of cold milk, butter and egg. Combine flour, dried fruit, sugar, mixed spice and salt in a bowl. Make a well in the centre. Add the yeast mixture. Stir to combine, and turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Or like me, let the mixer and dough hook do the work.
2. Place in a greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap. Set aside to rise for an hour or two in a warm place until doubled in size.
3. Punch down the centre of the dough with your fist. Knead on a lightly floured surface for 2 minutes. Shape into 12 even portions. Brush a baking tray with melted butter. Place portions side by side in the prepared pan.
4. Cover with a clean tea towel. Set aside for 30 minutes, buns will have risen and almost joined together.
5. Preheat oven to 190°C. Combine flour and water to make a paste. Place in a sealable plastic bag. Cut 1 corner from the bag to make a 2mm hole. Pipe crosses onto the buns.
6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until golden and cooked through.
7. Heat sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Simmer gently until the glaze thickens (about 5 minutes).
8. Transfer buns to a wire rack and brush tops with hot glaze.
9. Serve warm, smothered in butter.

After first rising

After second rising

After baking and glazing

Iced Cookies

February was a busy month for me cookie making. Generally I'm not a big baker, but I do like to create, and baking for friends is great fun. I'm not an expert, there are plenty of people who are - if you start googling iced cookies you will be amazed what you'll see. I'm a rank amateur compared to most, but I enjoy looking at the finished product and thinking "I did that!"

I also bought a heat gun, one that strips wallpaper, or in my case dries icing faster. Hubby despairs of me, just when he thought I had every single kitchen gadget you could ever own, I buy a power tool. It's quite cool actually, I can feel the testosterone surging when I switch it on - I think he's just jealous.

The cookie recipe I use is so easy to use. You can re-roll the leftover dough pieces until the very last cookie is cut, and the dough freezes in it's 'raw' state. You can also freeze the cooked iced and un-iced cookies.

The icing recipe I use is from http://sweetopia.net and tastes fabulous, you can adjust the consistency depending on how you want to decorate the cookies. I pipe by outlines on with an icing bag and when they set pipe a slightly runnier version of the icing in the middle which results in a nice smooth cookie. You can spread the icing on with a knife or dip the cookies in the icing if you prefer. It uses meringue powder, for those in Doha, I buy egg white powder from Lulu's - also I sift the icing sugar here twice to get rid of all the lumps. You can also pipe the icing onto baking parchment to make cupcake toppers (like the wee birds above), just pipe lots of extra ones, as they're fragile and break easily.

Sugar Cookies

• 2 cups sugar
• 350 grams butter, softened
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 5 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, add in the eggs one at a time, beating well before adding the next one. Beat in the vanilla essence
2. Sift the dry ingredients together and add to the wet mixture. Mix well. Pop dough into the fridge for at least half and hour to firm up
3. Heat the oven to 190 degrees celcius (375 degrees fahrenheit).
4. Line a baking tray with baking paper, roll out the dough to 1/2 centimetre thick and cut into shapes with a cookie cutter, place on the baking try and bake for about 6 -7 minutes until golden brown on the bottom and starting to colour on the top. Watch carefully as the difference btetween cooked and burnt is less than a minute.
5. Take out and leave on the baking tray to cook a little bit more (or pop straight onto a cooling rack if they're already golden brown). Cool on a rack, and ice or freeze.

Royal Icing for Cookies

• 180 mls warm water
• 5 tablespoons meringue powder (I use egg white powder)
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 kilo icing sugar, sifted twice

Method

1. Mix the warm water and meringue powder together in the bowl of a mixer and whisk by hand for 30 seconds, add the cream of tartar and whisk for another 30 seconds.
2. Add in all of the icing sugar (I mix by hand here to incorporate it, otherwise the mixer sends the icing sugar flying and my kitchen looks like it's been snowing)
3. Using the mixer on the lowest speed, beat the meringue for 10 minutes until thick and glossy.
4. Thin the mixture to the consistency you like by adding a teaspoon of water at a time and beat.
5. Tint with icing colours and pipe, spread or dip onto the cookies. Let set and then scoff! or package up for gifts.