Prawn Squid Chili Alfredo

Now does that just sound ultra tasty mates? Well to me it does! And since I uploaded a picture of the final, plated product to twitter and I have a few folks asking for the recipe, I suppose I should share it with YOU.

This is what the finished dish should somewhat look like:




Your plates and cutlery may vary of course.

 This is also one of dave's (tm) seat-of-the-pants whatcha-got-cuz-I'm-in-a-hurry creations.

The above being typed, this of course means that the following amounts may or may not be somewhere in the general vicinity of the amounts I used. But hey mates, I'm trying! Gotta give a bloke credit for that, right?

Here is what I *sorta* did:

What you need and do:

For the first part...
2 tbsp minced red onion
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp chili paste (try to find the kind at least 90% chilis)
1 small handful of fresh, minced basil leaves
1 small handful of fresh, minced, onion greens
1 tbsp olive oil
sprinkle of sea salt
Add all the above ingredients to a large cast-iron skillet.



Simmer and stir for a few minutes till the garlic is close to browning.

Then add 1 cup of white wine (or water) and let it simmer for a few minutes till the liquid is *almost* reduced to nothing.

For the next part you'll want to have these two things handy:
200 grams prawn meat, peeled and deveined
100 grams minced squid tube, cleaned of course

Perhaps your seafood may look something like this:


Your cutting board may vary of course.

Add that wonderful, delicious seafood to your that large saucepan that has just simmered down!



Oh yeah, I'm getting hungry just thinking about the wonderful smell from the saucepan last night.

Turn the heat up a bit and stir for a minute, then turn the heat to low. Add 1 cup water, cover and simmer till the liquid is gone.


Now you get to make it "Alfredo"!

Add 1 cup of full cream milk and 1/2 cup cream. Stir to combine while heating. Grate 1/2 cup cheddar cheese over the simmering mix, sprinkle on a pinch of sea salt. Stir to combine well.

Turn off the heat and cover.

Now you thicken it a bit. I use tapioca flour to thicken these type of sauces but if you only have cornstarch then that's ok.

Mix 1 tbsp tapioca flour with 1/2 cup cold water. Add to the saucepan with all your wonderfully smelling goodies in it; quick stir to combine. Wa-La!

Serve over any kind of pasta as takes your fancy. Garnish with fresh basil.

Note, MIL wanted spaghetti, Wifey-Poo wanted fettuccine, and I wanted angel-hair. Here's a pic of MIL's plate.



Enjoy!

Baked Crab Cakes

I wasn't planning on making crab cakes last night. In fact, not for a while till fresh crab prices come down. But someone needs a crabcake recipe that has just a "hint of 'heat'".

That someone being http://twitter.com/#!/cheeriogrrrl

I had to use the fake crab stuff. I'm sorry. I really am.

And I'm also a bit sorry --well, not really-- that this is another recipe with no exact amounts. Why? Cus when I make crab cakes or fish cakes I never measure stuff. The amounts depend really on just how much leftover mashed or baked potato I have leftover and I eyeball the seasoning amount.

But at least this should point you in the general direction! And there are pictures to help you.

And these are baked. That means healthy.


Dave's crab cakes

What you need:

Some leftover mashed or baked potatoes
Volume of crab meat that's about 2/3 of the amount of leftover potatoes
half an onion
minced garlic
dillweed
capers
dried mint
sea salt
white pepper
olive oil
grated parmesan
breadcrumbs
cayenne powder


What you do:

Put the large chunks of crab meat, the chopped onion, and a bit of olive oil in a saucepan. Cook on med-high heat for a few mins. Turn off heat, add the minced garlic, give it a good stir.

These pics show the before and after process.


This is before it goes on the heat


This is after 5 mins on the heat with the garlic added, and everything then minced finely.




Now take 6 to 10 capers and chop them up. See, look: capers!




Add to a large bowl the leftover potatoes, the minced crab-onion-garlic, the chopped capers, sea salt, white pepper, dillweed, dried mint. This pic may help you with the relative amounts:




Mixing it all together is the fun part!




Form them into "cakes" around 2.5 to 3 inches in diameter




Since I'm baking these I don't need to dip the cakes into eggwash to get the breading to stick as I would have to if I deep-fried them, so that step can be omitted when baking them.

Time to make the breading. Breadcrumbs, cayenne powder, sea salt and freshly grated parmesan.




Carefully coat the cakes with breadcrumbs and put on a baking tray. Sprinkle whatever leftover breading you have between and over the cakes.




Drizzle a bit of olive oil over each cake and bake in a hot oven till tops are browned (around 12 minutes or so). Carefully turn them over, drizzle with a bit more olive oil and bake for another 12 mins or so. All ovens are different so keep an eye on them since you don't want the breading to blacken.

For serving them I made a quick parsley sauce and fried some chips (french fries for you US folk). Doesn't this look tasty?




If you have questions about relative amounts or anything else about these just ask away in the comments, no worries mates.

Fennel and Prawn Risotto with Prosciutto

A risotto is actually a very easy dish to make so if you've never made one cus you think it's hard; it is not! Just go for it! And don't be snobbish about using ONLY arborio rice. You don't need to do that.

Yes, I know I've just offended millions of untold readers who are risotto aficionados. Tough. Tough, I say. I've made it with arborio, jasmine, basmati, long-grain, short-grain, medium grain, and probably a few others. Heck I even did one with half basmati and half long-grain brown rice.

You know what? They all tasted great. The key (for me at least) is to dry fry the rice a bit first so it goes from translucent to opaque, THEN start on the liquid it'll be cooking in.

I used prosciutto in this because I got a large, unsliced slab of it half off at the shops and after I finished thin slicing it I had a small piece leftover that just wouldn't go through my meat slicer.

Well, it probably would have but I doubt I'dve had any fingertips left for typing.

Obviously, a piece of ham or bacon can be substituted for the prosciutto, no worries.

You'll also notice that this risotto is not heavily seasoned as I really wanted the fennel flavour to stand up and be noticed. It was.

What you need:
1 hunk of prosciutto --about the weight of a full sized bacon rasher

1/2 of a large fennel bulb

1 cup of rice --any kind, uncooked
1 or 2 tbsp olive oil
sprinkle of sea salt

2 litres (1/2 gallon) of MY fennel stock
handful of dried red capsicums, minced
fronds from the fennel bulb

250 grams (about 1/2 pound), peeled, cooked, deveined small prawns


What you do:

First, prepare the fennel. Remember what a fennel bulb looks like?




Trim the stalks off.




Hey look! A pile of fennel stalks with fronds!




Trim the fronds off the fennel, you'll use the fronds for flavouring the risotto.




Then chop up all the fronds. I don't need to show you a picture of that, do I? Thought not.

Next, cut your fennel bulb in half.


Notice that thick core? Some people cut that away. I don't. Especially since it'll be so soft and succulent in this dish.

Slice one of the fennel halves (or both, your choice). Try to make them about 5 mm or 1/4 of an inch thick.


Then, for this dish, I cut the slices in half. You don't need a picture of that, right?

Take your hunk of prosciutto and trim the fat off. Keep the fat! Chop the fat up finely and put it in the large fry pan you'll be using for the risotto. Cook it till the fat is liquid and the little bits left over are browned.

Now add you sliced, cut, fennel bulb and cook it till it looks about like this.

Slightly caramelized, but not soggy. Stir whilst frying, of course.

Next, add the rice, the olive oil, and the sea salt. Fry it (whilst stirring) till the rice turns opaque. This'll only take a minute or two.

Now add 1 litre of the fennel stock, the minced fennel fronds, and the dried red capsicums (bell pepper). Give it all a good stir, turn the heat down to medium low. Cover it.

Check it in 5 minutes. Stir it. If the liquid isn't cooking down and being absorbed into the rice the turn the heat up a bit higher. Stir it every few minutes. Add more fennel stock as need until the rice is done and there's almost no liquid left.

The above paragraph should take around 18 minutes.

Turn the heat off and add the prawns, give it a mix. Put the lid on and let it stand for a few more minutes. Now's a good time to finely mince the rest of the prosciutto. Add the minced prosciutto, mix well.

Serve it up!




Obviously, you can modify and add ingredients to your heart's content. With this one though, I really wanted to get the fresh fennel flavour.

Smoked Salmon Sushi Plus Fried Goodies

If any of you have been reading this blog or my other one for any length of time, then you know I'm a big fan of sushi. In all it's wonderful forms!

Ahhhhhh.

This post really isn't about how to make sushi as there are plenty of sites out there to show you how. This is more about what you can do with the sushi and what you can serve on the side.

Firstly, let's have a look at the first plate:




Very simple, no frills. Oh, each avocado slice is actually slightly pressed into the smoked salmon so it stays put. I had a bit of leftover rice so I made a small rice patty in the middle and tried to arrange the last few smoked salmon slices around it in a decorative fashion. Yeah, it doesn't show too well.



Next up is the second plate:




Again, simple. The rolls are just smoked salmon and avocado, whilst for the nigiri sushi I put the avocado UNDER the smoked salmon. Tricky, eh?

For the sushi fixin's I did the following (please note this pic was taken halfway through after I'd consolidated all the sushi onto one plate after our first grazing):




Serving the pickled Japanese veggies along with the wasabi paste in scallop shells made a nice presentation. Soy sauce was in a bowl, not a scallop shell.

But I didn't stop there. I also made two (2) fried dishes. One was some deep-fried rice puffs and the second was battered, fried, lingcod pieces. Instead of typing in what I did for the rice puffs, how's about you watch a video?




And if you want to see me make them really fast...




They didn't puff up as much as I'd hoped, but they were still darned tasty!




After I fried the rice puffs, I put them in a warm oven while I battered and fried the fish. I don't really need to tell you how to batter and fry fish, do I? No, didn't think so.

Just enjoy a pic of the finished pieces:




Everything was served on platters on the table and folks just dug in to what they wanted. Sorry, no pics of the whole thing put together as we were too busy stuffing our faces.

Hope you enjoyed the pics today.

How To Shuck Fresh Scallops

With pictures! With video! With words!

Can't beat that.

And when I say "fresh scallops", I mean FRESH! These babies were pulled out of the ocean the morning that I bought them at the Willunga Farmers Market. The wife and I really like the market. Every Saturday morning no matter what the weather: rain, hail, sleet, 120 F temps, no matter cus it's always there!

I especially like the stall from Nangkita that has the venison sausages from their own deer farm, but that's a different story.

Back to the scallops!

These juicy shellfish were taken from Kangaroo Island, which is just a hop off the tip of Cape Jervis. I've never been there, but it is on my list of many places to visit.

Anyways...

Let's say you've got a fresh load of scallops and you have NO IDEA how to get them out of their shells, nor do you have any idea what to do with them once you have "shucked" them.

That's why you are reading this. To Learn. From Me.

Fresh scallops are actually very easy to "shuck" from their shells. Oh, the part of the scallop you in the US eat is the adductor muscle that holds the two shells together and propels the little bugger all over, quickly. When you are outside of the US, you'll find that not only is the adductor muscle eaten, but so is the roe.

Roe is the bright pink part of the scallop. It's the reproductive part. And it is oh so tasty, smooth, and creamy! Seriously, I think the fresh roe is better than the adductor muscle!

Now, if you have been interested in learning how to shuck scallops you've probably seen that youtube video with the guy on the fishing boat shucking scallops at the rate of one every five seconds. Yeah, that's fast. That's also his job. But it's not your job and you also want to keep the roe.

That's why you are reading this post.

First, you need some fresh scallops:


Please note that is a butter knife. You do not need NOR want a sharp knife for shucking scallops. Also notice that one shell of a scallop is deep and concave, and the other is flat --in fact slightly convex.

Put the scallop in your palm with the concave shell down and the hinge towards your thumb. You'll notice a gap between the shell halves close to the hinge. Here I am pointing that out to you:




Just gently slide your butter knife into that gap. You want to work it all the way to the other side whilst keep the knife as close to the flat shell as possible.




Once you slice through the large, tasty, succulent adductor muscle the scallop will basically pop open:




Open that baby up and scrap out everything except the large muscle AND the roe! That pink stuff is the roe --gourmet food!




Then just slide your knife under the muscle and the roe still attached to the concave shell:




Don't worry if you can't keep the roe attached to the muscle of the scallop, but keep the roe anyways. Your plate should soon start to look like this:




Here's a short vid demonstrating the process. Please note, if you don't keep the roe (you idiot, you) then this can be done in about ten seconds. 30 of the 43 seconds is me saving the roe.




To cook these fresh, succulent, ultra-creamy, delicious scallops, all you need is a small saucepan and a bit of olive oil along with some butter. Or you can eat them raw --you'll be transorted to heaven! But don't eat them raw if they aren't ultra fresh. Anyways, half olive oil and half butter:




Do NOT over cook them! 45 seconds to a mins on each side in the sizzling oil/butter is perfect. Your plate of cooked scallops should now look like this:




Just eat them. Savor every tender, juicy morsel as you drool all over yourself and make very pleasant purring sounds.

Mussels in a Creamy Garlic Sauce

This turned out soooooo good a few nights ago that I just had to share it all of you. It's fairly simple and oh so tasty.


What you need:
1 kilo of scrubbed, de-bearded mussels in their shell --I used New Zealand green-lipped
1 small onion, fine chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp butter
1 cup of white wine --I used chardonnay
1/2 cup (or so) of water
1/2 cup of cream

What you do:
Put the onion and butter in a wok or a wide frypan. Saute for a few mins and then add the garlic. Cook for a minute or two, while stirring regularly. Add the white wine and the water, bring it up to a simmer and then add the mussels. Put on the lid.

Once the mussels have opened, remove them from the sauce and continue to simmer till the sauce is reduced by half. While the sauce is reducing, remove the steamed mussels from their shells --obviously, discard any that didn't open.

Once the sauce is reduced, put the mussel meat and the cream into the sauce. Cook till it's hot (should only take a minute or two) and then serve it up! I served this over some jasmine rice, but there is a lot that can be done with this for serving so use your imagination.

Oh, keep the shells. They are great for serving seafood type hors-dourves (how the heck is that spelled?) on. And they also make great spoons if you are having a south-pacific style feast.

Squid Chili

The other day I actually got to make a dinner JUST FOR ME! Ahhhhhhhh, bliss. Of course I had to make other stuff for the rest of the clan. Why? Well, firstly, I thought B.I.L. would be heading out to teach before dinner so I hadn't planned anything for him --turned out that not only would he be around for dinner but that I would also have to give him a ride to the U. And M.I.L. is having teeth probs so it was going to be something soft yet tasty for her. Wifey-Poo had some tummy probs so she was wanting something very mild and light.

Needless to say, I ended up making four completely different main courses. But the one I had was THE BEST! Mine was the chilli, of course.

Normally if I'm going to make chilli then I'll get the beans soaking the night before. I did not have that luxury this time so it meant extra cooking time for the beans, but that's ok since I can do loads around the house and grounds while the beans simmer, no worries.

So, here is what I did for my Squid Chilli!

To a large pot, I added the following:

150 gm dried berlotti beans
8 dried curry leaves
1/2 an onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
sprinkle of sea salt
lots of water

I put it on to boil and boiled till almost no liquid left, added a few more cups of water and boiled it down again till the beans were soft.

Into a hot, oiled wok I added the following:

1 squid tube --cleaned, sliced into rings, and blanched*
1/2 an onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 tbsp chilli paste (use the kind that's at least 90% thai chillis)
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tbsp dried basil
sprinkle of sea salt


*if you blanch the squid rings after cleaning and slicing then you can use them in any sauces and any cooking length without them going "tough" or "chewy".

I seared all that in the wok for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring/tossing regularly. I deglazed the wok with 2 glasses of shiraz and cooked it down till there was only a bit of liquid left.

The contents of the wok were then added to the pot with the cooked beans (and all that other stuff). One can of peeled roma tomatoes was added along with 2 tsp of chilli powder.

Simmered down till it was thick but not sticking and then served up! I did grate some fresh onion and cheddar cheese over the top of my bowl and I used some of my wholemeal flatbread as scoopers.

This was darned good! No reason why this can't be done for pretty much any type of meat you want to use in the chilli. Ground roo (kangaroo) instead of the squid would be particularly nice I think, as would moose.

Maori Fried Mussels

And we all know how the Kiwis love their mussels! Heck, just look at the All-Black Rugby team! Ok, just a little humour there...

There are probably about as many different ways to fry mussels as there are chef's in this world so these are definitely NOT the end-all, be-all of mussel frying. BUT (and it's a huge butt) there is one key thing here: fresh ingredients and minimal seasonings.

Why? Cus that's the Polynesian way of cooking, and New Zealand is part of Polynesia.

I'm going to give you 3 "methods" of frying them, no real recipes, just the basics of how to do it.

Oh, if you can't get fresh mussels, then you can use the jarred ones for this, but it won't be as tasty. But you won't have to go through the prep work so it all evens out.

A quick way to de-beard mussels: hold the mussel in one hand with the hinge of the shell towards you. Grab the beard with your other hand and give a quick pull towards you; the shell, as it approaches the hinge, will neatly slice off the beard. If you have a LOT of mussels this is much quicker than using scissors or a knife, AND you always get the entire beard.



1st method:

De-beard the mussels and put them in a pan with enough water to just cover them. Heat em up and take them out of the water as soon as they open. It is important you take them out right when they start to open.

Take the mussels out of their shells and slice or cutaway the tough outer ring around the front edge. Lightly dust them with flour, dip into egg/milk mixture (1 to 1, so about 1/4 cup of milk for each egg), dredge through breadcrumbs, and fry in hot butter until lightly golden brown.



2nd method:

Same as the first, but once you've got them out of the shells and cut away the tough ring you give em a quick rinse in cold water. Then dust with a mix of flour, salt and pepper. Dip in egg wash (all eggs, NO milk), dredge through breadcrumbs, and fry in very hot oil.



3rd method:

De-bread the mussels and pry them shells open (this can be, ummmm, fun!), cut off the outer ring, dust with flour, dip in 100% egg mix and then fry immediately in hot butter. This method produces the MOST succulent fried mussels EVER! But it is also a bit of work gettin' them suckers open without lightly steaming them first.


Any of those methods can be used with jarred mussels, no worries. Oh, and if you can get New Zealand Green-Lipped Mussels... not only are they tasty but have some wonderful pharmacuetical properties too (I'll leave the googling for you).

If you do use a dipping sauce, DON'T use a strong flavoured sauce and DON'T use a lot of it.

A nice, crisp lager goes well with these, BTW.

Prawn and Bacon Curry

I mean really, just what DOESN'T go well with bacon? You can do loads of different dishes with bacon. Ahhhhh, the humble pig; Mother Nature's gift to the culinary world.

Don't worry about me abandoning the cheesy goodness, I'll be back with a How To Make Awesomely Good Feta Cheese soon --complete with pictures. But I've been told by the clan that I'd better write this one down cus they are going to want it again.

See, when I make curries I usually make them with whatever I can find in the pantry. They always come out great, but every once in a while one stands out. Two nights ago was a "once in a while" curry.

Note about the prawns (shrimp): I used already peeled and cooked prawns cus that's all I had at the time. Feel free to use fresh ones, no worries. Just make sure you keep the shells, tails, and heads as they make a very flavourful seafood stock when boiled and strained.

Feel free to use lemon grass or kaffir lime leaves if you'd like, they should go in at the same time you add the garlic. Speaking of the garlic, I used jarred, prepared, minced garlic as I was out of fresh garlic heads.

Alright, I've blathered enough! Let's get cookin'!

Prawn and Bacon Curry


What you need:

Prep wok-ing:
5 or 6 large rashers of bacon, diced (for you US'ns that'd be about half a pound of bacon strips chopped up)

For the initial wok-ing:
bacon fat (see above)
1 small onion, minced
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp tamarind paste
2 tbsp Tom Yum paste
1 small red capsicum (bell pepper), minced
1 small can (225 grams around 8 oz) whole water chestnuts

For the prawn part:
350 grams (3/4 of a pound) of shelled, deveined, de-tailed, small prawns (think cocktail shrimp size)
1/4 cup cornflour (called cornstarch in the US)
2 tsp curry powder --I used Clive of India, but any good one will do
1 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder
2 tbsp olive oil

For the cookin' part:
1 can (400 mls or 13 oz) coconut milk or coconut cream (whichever is in your pantry)
1/2 cup cream
semi-cooked bacon pieces from prep wok-ing

For the serving part:
Bed of cooked, white, long-grained rice (I used jasmine)
1 cup of greek yoghurt


Yeah I know, seems like a long list. You'll be happy that I broke it up into sections though, makes the instructions very easy to follow.


What you do:

Start with the bacon in the prep wok-ing section. Toss the cut up bacon into a large wok and cook on low heat till the bacon is about halfway cooked --you don't want it to be crispy. Take the semi-cooked bacon pieces out of the wok, but leave the bacon fat in the wok.

Next add the minced onion to the wok and cook in the bacon fat for a minute or 2 on medium-low heat. Then add the next four ingredients in the "initial wok-ing" section. Give it a good stir. Once it starts to really sizzle (and smell OH SO GOOD!), add the water chestnuts plus the water from the can they were in. Give it a good stir.

While the can water is cooking down (it'll only take a minute) you get to do the prawn part! Put the prawns in a large bowl and then add everything from the "prawn part" section. Toss to coat everything evenly.

By the time you take the bowl with the coated prawns over to the sizzling wok the water should have cooked down. Add the olive oil and then add the prawns to the wok (which is smelling really good by now). Stir and toss and then turn the heat up for a minute.

Add the coconut cream, the cream, and the semi-cooked bacon pieces. Give it a good stir to combine, turn the heat to low and simmer for 5 or 10 mins. Stir it every now and then.

Serve it over a bed of the cooked long grain white rice, and each plate gets a dollop of greek yoghurt on the top of the curry.

Why? Well, this could be a bit hot for some folks and the yoghurt takes care of the heat but you still get the flavours.

Some people will think this isn't hot enough! If you're one of those folks who likes your curries really hot, then double the amount of Tom Yum paste and add a few chopped up thai chilli peppers at the time you add the garlic. That'll be guaranteed to clear the sinuses!

Prawn-Flavoured Miso and Seaweed Soup

Ever done any cooking with prawns (shrimp)? Ever had to shell them? Did you ever wonder what you could do with the "heads" and the rest of the shells besides chucking them in the bin? Well, you are about to find out what you can do with them.

This easy and tasty soup makes a great side dish to whatever you are doing with the shrimp (prawn) meat for the main course.


Here's what you need:

Prawn (shrimp) shells and heads from about 1 pound of shrimp (prawn)
1 or 2 tbsp light miso paste
1 or 2 sheets of yaki-nori seaweed (the kind you make sushi rolls with)
8 to 10 cups of water
a large saucepan
a heat source

There's some optional stuff, like shitake shrooms, chillis, or some of the prawn meat, but the above will give you a very nice, refreshing soup. Oh, the light miso paste refers to the color and has nothing to do with reducing calories.


What you do:

Dump the prawn shells and heads into your saucepan along with the water. Crank up the heat source, cover and simmer till the liquid is reduced by around half. This'll take anywhere between 30 mins (minutes) and an hour (3,600 seconds).

Remove from heat. Take a potato masher and mash the shells (while still in the broth) to extract every last bit of prawny goodness from them. Strain to get rid of the shells. Put the strained broth back in the saucepan and add the miso paste. Put it back on the heat to bring it up to a simmer.

A couple of minutes (a few hundred seconds) before serving, shred the seaweed sheets into the soup. Let it stand for a minute.

Serve it up!

Tasty, simple, healthy!

Makes about a litre. If you want more soup, then use more water initially.

If you are using dried shitakes, try reconstituting them in half water and half dry sherry --it'll take an hour or so depending on how dry they are (if they've been in your pantry for a few years it'll take a long soak). And add the reconstipated shitakes to the soup the same time as the miso.

Seafood Chowder

This may seem to be a fairly simple menu item, but no matter how you make your chowder and whatever you put into it (clams, prawns (shrimp), crab, fish chunks, mussels, etc) there are a couple of very important techniques to getting it right.

For those of you in the US who make your own New England Clam Chowder, you'll feel right at home with this.

There are also many many different ingredients you can use. I'm going to give you the recipe as I made it two nights ago, and then give you a bunch of different things you can use/substitute. That way no matter where in the world you are and no matter what local ingredients you can lay your hands on, you'll always be able to make Dingo Dave's Seafood Chowder!

Oh, I tend to make it slightly different each time, depending on what I have in the pantry and the freezer that day or what was fresh at the fish shop that morning. So there's no real hard and fast rule, except for a couple of techniques.

On with the show!

Dingo Dave's Seafood Chowder

What you need:
2 or 3 rashers of bacon cut into small pieces
bacon fat from the above bacon (this is IMPORTANT)
1 can (400 mls or about 14 oz) coconut cream
200 gms small whole prawns (1/2 pound small shrimp) with the shells on
1 litre seafood stock (made from the above prawn shells)
1 whitefish fillet cut into small chunks (I used hoki)
small can of crab meat (or fresh if you've got it)
1/2 to 1 litre milk (2 to 4 cups)
a small minced (or diced) onion
2 cloves crushed garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sesame oil
3 or 4 small diced potatoes
sea salt
ground black pepper
ground white pepper
1 tbsp dried basil
1/4 cup flour
a couple of litres of H-TWO-OH(water)

What you due:

Firstly, make the seafood stock (start this a few hours before you want to make the chowder). To make it you'll need to peel and devein the prawns. Toss the veins (alimentary tract, ahem...) but keep the heads, shells, legs etc and throw them in a big ole saucepan. Add a litre (4 cups) of water and boil the heck out of it. Once it's almost boiled down, add another litre of water and boil for a short time. Let cool. Take a potato masher and mash down the shells --this is to extract every bit of flavourful prawny goodness from the shells. Strain the stock (this is IMPORTANT). Save the stock, dump the shells.

Ok, your seafood stock is made, no worries.

Now for the nuts and bolts.

Cook the bacon pieces in the pot you plan to make the chowder in (use a low flame). Once the bacon is done to your liking (crispy or not, your call), remove the bacon but LEAVE THE BACON FAT IN THE POT. Add the diced potatoes to the pot, and cook in the bacon fat for a few mins; stir regularly. After a couple of mins, add the minced onion, some salt, some ground black (or white) pepper and a bit of dried basil. Stir it around. You should have some very nice aromas by now; just keep the heat low so nothing burns. Add the flour and mix well.

Yes, you'll have some browned on gunky looking stuff in the pot along with the spuds and onions. Don't worry, you're about to take care of that.

Now add the seafood stock you made earlier in the day. Give everything a good stir and use your wooden spoon to scrap the bottom and sides of the pot. Ain't deglazing pots great? Very flavourful. Oh, and, ummmmm, it's a FRENCH cooking technique!

Now add the coconut cream and about 1/2 litre of milk (2 cups). Let it simmer for a few mins.

While that's simmering, you get to sear the spices and seafood.

I use a wok, but feel free to use a saucepan if you'd like.

To the wok add the olive oil, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, fish chunks, crab meat, prawn (shrimp) meat. Crank the heat to HIGH and sear that stuff while tossing/stirring regularly. It'll only take 2 to 3 mins.

Dump the entire contents of the wok into the chowder pot. Also add the bacon pieces. This is the point where you can add more milk if you think the chowder is too thick. I, however, feel that chowder can never be too thick --but that's just me.

Let it simmer for a couple of mins, then serve it up! Have a fresh made loaf of bread or a fresh cobb or a fresh baguette around for dunkers.

This is seriously good!

And now for the substitutions and garnishes!

Well, most of you may not want to make your own fish stock. I can respect that, really! So get a bottle of clam juice instead. Oi! Can't find clam juice, use white wine! Don't drink? Don't worry, the alcohol will cook off.

Fake crab can be subbed for crab meat, no worries.

If you sub clams for the prawns, then DON'T sear them and only add them to the chowder in the last couple of minutes --otherwise they'll be really tough and chewy.

Don't like coconut (heathen scum)? No worries, just use milk cream instead.

Allergic to lactose? Well... this really isn't the recipe for you, sorry.

Garnish with any herbs you want, just make sure they are fresh; chives, basil, parsley, coriander (cilantro if you are in N.A.) etc.

Want it spicy? Add a tbsp or two of vindaloo paste to the wok when you sear the seafood and spices. Oh YEAH! That'll get them capillaries dilated!

Bacon Wrapped Fish Fillets with Pineapple, Peanut, and Coconut Curry

Oi, don't that sound like a mouthful? That's cus it is, and a darned tasty one at that! If you like fish and pork, then this is the dish for YOU. Mmmmmmmmmm... I drool on the keyboard as I type this and remember the flavours... ahhhhhhh...

Ok dave, take a deep breath and calm down; your stuffed pumpkin will be out of the oven soon so you can eat. Mmmmmmm...

Oops, back to the topic. So, like, what kinda fish? I used basa. Basa is a freshwater white fleshy fish found in the Mekong Delta (that'd be Vietnam). I do believe it's a type of catfish. I wouldn't want to use US catfish for this as they are darned flavourful on their own (deep fried with a cajun chili dipping sauce). Basically, any small whitefish fillets will do. Hake, Whiting, Hoki, Basa, Cod, Halibut, whatever.

One of the nice things about this is that it only takes 20 mins and it'll feed four hungry adults (provided they like bacon and fish, of course).

A note about Bacon... American bacon is from pork bellies, whereas Canadian bacon, UK, Aus, Kiwi, etc is from the pork back. The difference: The belly pork is fattier than the back pork. Thin-sliced American bacon probably won't work too well for this as it would crispy up before the fish was done; I'd suggest for you US'ns to use either Canadian bacon, or thick sliced US bacon.

Alrighy, here we go with Dingo Dave's Bacon Wrapped Fish Fillets with Pineapple, Peanut, and Coconut Curry.

What you need:

4 whitefish fillets (I used basa, but hoki, hake, cod, or halibut would be fine)
8 LONG slices of THICK bacon

rice

For the curry sauce:
one can (400 ml or 16 oz) coconut cream
1/3 to 1/2 cup finely chopped pineapple
one good sized handful of coarsely chopped roasted peanuts
2 to 3 tbsp of minced onion
a couple of tbsp olive oil and a 1/2 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp tamarind paste
1 tsp prepared lemon grass
1 or 2 cloves crushed garlic
1 tbsp minced ginger
pinch or two of chilli powder
1 or 2 tsp turmeric powder

Optional garnish stuff:
thin sliced red capsicum (red bell pepper)
fresh coriander leaves (cilantro)
parsley sprigs
fresh basil leaves
etc (use your imagination)

What to do:

First, put your rice on to cook. 1 cup of uncooked should be enough, but don't short yourself as leftover rice is a very good thing to have in the kitchen. Short, long, medium, jasmine, basmati, whatever you prefer. You should have some rice cooking technique where you can go away and leave it for 20 mins, and then POOF perfect rice. A microwave oven makes a great rice cooker.

Once the rice is on, wrap each fish fillet with two slices of bacon. You don't need to pin the bacon on with toothpicks. Start cooking the bacony-fish either on your big grill hotplate, or a large frypan. Low heat. You can also bake it in a hot oven, but if you do that you'll want to get them in the oven before the rice as they'll take 20 or so mins to cook in the oven. I prefer the hotplate on the outdoor grill thankyouverymuch.

Once the bacony-fish starts cooking, you'll start the curry. Put the olive oil and sesame oil in a wok, add the pineapple, onion, and peanut. Crank the heat medium-high. Just when the wok starts to sizzle, add the rest of the curry stuff. Toss it every ten or 15 secs so it doesn't burn, then after 2 mins (you'll smell WONDERFUL spicy aromas) add the coconut cream, stir, and turn the heat down low.

By now, it should be time to turn the bacony-fish. They really only need 7 or 8 mins a side. It should smell really really really good by now.

While the fish finishes cooking, give the curry a stir every minute or so. Give it a taste, adjust seasonings: if it's not spicy enough for you then add some more chili powder, if it's too hot then add some cream, if it's too tart, then add a bit of sugar.

It should all come together 20 mins after you started the rice. Each plate gets a bed of rice, then the bacon wrapped fish, and the curry sauce poured over the top. It'll look something like this:



I know, my parrot pics are a heckuva lot better than my food pics, but I was rushed a bit.

Oh, I didn't have any fresh red bell peppers, so I added some dried ones to the curry --as I'm sure you can tell from the pic, eh? Garnish with whatever herb you'd like. Or not, your choice.

Deep Frying Fool

Yes, I know it's bad for you... but gosh darn it: it tastes GOOD!

Deep fried goodness! Oh, come on now, doesn't everything taste better when tossed in hot oil with or without some type of coating? Hell, I've even deep fried sushi --TRUE (personally, I like it better raw and yes, I make damned good sushi).

Today though, you get a wonderful batter that'll fry a variety of things. I was cleaning out the fridge the other day, and had a little of this and a little of that. I thought for lunch I should deep fry the bits and see which ones come out best --for some reason, no one else in the clan house was as excited about this lunch as I was... hmmmmm...

Anyways, I decided that a good, thick, egg batter would be best. Before I give you the batter recipe, let me list the things I was deep fryin':

pickled mussels
camenbert cheese
metwurst
brie cheese
crab meat
feta cheese
blood sausage (black pudding)
bleu cheese


Ahem, yes, I like to eat... As you can tell, I needed a versatile batter (definitely not breading). It turns out, the feta was BEST, followed very closely by everything else. Hey, I am a deep frying King --been doing it a while.

The batter:

half flour/half polenta (corn meal will do) --about 3/4 cup of each
salt
ground white pepper
milk powder (a tbsp or two)
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tsp powdered coriander
1 tsp powdered cumin
2 eggs
enough water to make a good, thick batter.

Mix it all together, then use.

Oh, if you use a good, wide wok, then you only need an inch of oil. I use olive oil for everything except deep frying, for that I use sunflower oil.

As I said, the deep fried feta was great, but so was everything else (the mussels were a close second).

Hmmmm, maybe I should tell you how to make deep fried, soft boiled eggs sometime (it's a vietnamese thing).