E-shan eggplant recipe

This is my current favourite recipe - it is super easy to make, tastes damn good and is a nice vegetable dish to complement meat dishes when cooking Chinese/Asian cuisine. I may be a little biased because I am currently really into eggplants, despite hating it and refusing to even touch it with a ten-foot pole when I was a kid. 

1 large eggplant (diced)

1/2 onion (diced)

3 cloves garlic (minced)

1 red chilli (add more if you like it spicy)

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 2 tbsp water

1. Fry onion, garlic, diced eggplant and chilli with some oil over medium heat until eggplant becomes soft. Add water to pan if necessary to prevent from drying out.

2. Add the soy sauce to the pan and stir fry to mix, then add fish sauce and oyster sauce. Stir fry and mix well. Cover pan (optional)

3. Add cornstarch mixture and stir until sauce thickens. 

Congratulations, Dr. S!

One of my oldest and closest friends has recently become Dr. S! I have known her since we were three and ever since then (I may be exaggerating here, but trust me, not by much!), she has wanted to be a doctor. Over the years, the rest of us were torn and undecided about what we wanted to be when we grew up but not her. She has always known she wanted to be a doctor, and it was something she pursued with passion and conviction, especially in the last six or so years.

Of all the people I know, this is one person who has shown me the true meaning of dedication and discipline, of fighting for your dream and never giving up. I have known a lot of other people who have become doctors, but none with passion like yours. Many who regret studying medicine or who fell into this profession simply because that was the profession to be. But not you. You are what makes this profession a noble one. I always enjoyed reading your emails, punctuated with anecdotes about medicine or simply about how happy it makes you. For me, this is what makes a great doctor. Not the official certificate that legalises you as one, but your convictions, your passion and your dedication.

Congratulations, hun. I am so so proud of you xxx

Roasted peppers!

Red capsicums have been on sale at Foodland for $2 per bag (~8 capsicums per bag) for the past month and so I have found myself to be on the receiving end of a bag each week from P's grocery shopping trips. Although I am currently on a "salad for lunch" kick, I have never really been a huge fan of raw crunchy vegetables (at least, I like them for a while and then get bored of them really quickly). What I have always been a huge fan of, however, are those roasted peppers you get at the deli for $39 per kg, which is equivalent to ~$8 per small tub, which is equivalent to daylight robbery, if you ask me...especially after finding this super awesome super easy recipe for making them myself!

I love this because not only is it super easy, it is also a really good way of using up the capsicums, which seem to only last about a week in the fridge (and it is NOT easy to use up 8 huge capsicums over one week!) but once roasted and kept in a airtight jar, can last up to several weeks in the fridge.

Red capsicums (i usually use 6-8, makes for 2-3 medium sized jars)

Juice from 1 lemon (1/2 - 1 cup)

1 cup white wine vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

2-3 cloves garlic (minced)

1 tbsp salt

1. Place the capsicums on a roasting rack/pan (or whatever passes as one) in the oven at 230C (or however high your oven can go) until the skins of the capsicums start to blister and turn black. Turn the capsicums at least once so that all sides turn black.

Note: Be careful of heat whilst opening the oven at this point!

2. Once the capsicums cool down, peel off the blackened skins (I tend to use tongs, a butter knife and a fork to do this). Cut the peppers in pieces and remove the stems and seeds. ***

*** Note: NEVER handle the seeds with bare hands!! Capsicum burns can be a real bitch! (trust me, I speak from experience - excruciating pain for hours, been years since that happened but the pain is still vivid!) Always use gloves or just use the utensils to handle them.

3. Place the capsicums in a airtight glass jar.

4. Heat the vinegar, oil, lemon juice, garlic and salt in a saucepan until boiling. Pour over the capsicums in the jar(s). Let cool and then store in the fridge. 

Awesome addition to salads or sandwiches! hmmm.....

Not so blue Monday

So it is Monday again, the start of a whole new week and what better way to end the Monday blues than a girls' night in, complete with awesome cheese, gin and tonic + panna cotta with kiwi coulis! We did fit in a pre-cooked dinner in between but will save that for another blog post some other time!

This was my first attempt at making panna cotta and kiwi coulis (or any type of coulis!) It didn't quite taste like panna cotta however- it was a bit lighter, more like a posset (or what I envisioned a posset would taste like), which I actually quite like. As for the coulis, it turned out to be quite easy to make and added quite a nice flavour to the dessert, so I think I am a convert on that part.

Anyway how this all came about was because I had a few kiwis sitting on my kitchen counter which I did not feel like eating and so I was trying to find a recipe to use it up in. It was either panna cotta with kiwi coulis or kiwi cupcakes and the former just sounded a bit more appealing than the latter. As usual, I chose the recipe with the least ingredients and steps and adapted it to suit my laziness and whatever I had in the pantry.

Panna Cotta (makes ~6)

400ml cream (I used thickened)

50g sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 packet of powdered gelatin

1/2 cup of cold water

1. Heat the cream and sugar together in a saucepan until sugar has dissolved.

2. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla essence.

3. Add the powdered gelatin into a bowl with the cold water and let stand for 10 mins.

4. Add the warm panna cotta mixture into the bowl with gelatin and stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved.

5. Pour the panna cotta mixture into the individual bowls (I used wine glasses and ramekins, need to get myself some nice funky dessert dishes!) and chill in fridge overnight.

*This was also my first time using gelatin - I always thought it was too much trouble to get some and use them but it was actually quite fun!

Kiwi Coulis (This is a really awesome and super easy recipe!)

2 tbsp cornflour (recipe stated cornstarch but I only had cornflour)

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

2 kiwis, chopped (save some pieces of kiwi as a garnish/topping)

1. Dissolve the cornflour in a small amount of water

2. Boil water, sugar and kiwi for ~5 mins

3. Take off heat and stir in cornflour mixture

4. Let cool before use

Have with gin and tonic + lime (lemon is a huge no-no!) with some awesome girlfriends and 90's music blaring in the background - definitely a cure for the Monday blues!

Eggplant chips

Thought that this should be the first post as there has been quite a few requests for this recipe!

P had brought over an eggplant from his garden several weeks ago and I was trying to think of a dish that would complement the pasta he was cooking for dinner when i remembered him saying that we should try to make eggplant fritters one day. So I scoured the internet for recipes and found a simple enough recipe for eggplant chips instead. 

Here is our adapted version of the recipe:

Ingredients:

- 1 large eggplant / 2 medium eggplants (makes a large bowl of chips) (we used the egg-shaped eggplants)

- herbs (we used fresh parsley, dried oregano and thyme)

- 1 cup flour

- 1 cup breadcrumbs

- 1 egg (may require 2 eggs depending on size of eggplant), beaten 

- pepper

- salt 

1. Cut the eggplants into chips (depending how thick you want them to be, we found that it was nicer as fat chips instead of thin chips, also saves time if you cut them into large sizes, otherwise will take too long to prepare!!) 

*if you are not using the eggplants straight away, make sure you soak them in water with salt to prevent from oxidising and turning brown.

2. To prepare breadcrumb mixture,  add pepper and herbs to 1 cup of breadcrumb and mix.

3. Coat eggplant chip with flour then beaten egg then breadcrumb mixture.

(*might want to have a small bowl of water to wash ur hands in between as the mixture tends to stick to your fingers!)

4. Deep fry chips with hot oil for several minutes. (we just used a small saucepan and did a few batches)

5. Salt to taste

They were so awesome (if I may say so myself) that we made them again later that week!