The night starts here... forget your name... forget your fear...
You drop a coin... into the sea... and shout out "Please come back to me"...
You name your child... after your fear... and tell them "I have brought you here"...

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Awesome Sauce! Literally, this sauce is awesome...

Just a simple, dessert sauce that in my opinion goes best with plain ol' vanilla ice-cream, it will never steer you wrong.

This sauce is so simple to make, so very very easy that if you didn't try it I would have to condemn you to the lowest, deepest, coldest part of Hell- oh yes thats right, Hell is cold, trust me.
But yes, *ahem* back on topic, Mars Bar Sauce.


What you need:
4 Mars Bars
90ml of double cream

(realistically you can mess with the measurements all you like if you want the sauce thicker on thinner, it all depends on how you like it.)

And the hard part:

Chop up the mars bars, (it'll help with the melting process) and melt them in a double broiler, or just a glass bowl sitting on top of a pot of simmering water.
When the chocolate is all melted and the nougat all gooey gradually add in the cream, stiring the entire time to make sure it doesn't burn at the bottom.

And there you have Mars bar sauce, in absolutely no time, all you need to do now is make sure you have some ice-cream handy

Variations include:
snickers/any other chocolate bar instead of the Mars bars
addition of brandy or a liquor for an extra punch

again realistically this recipe is so simple that you can do anything to it, so do it, give it a try...

taxi xoxo

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

These Suprêmes are Supremely... Seriously


Julie and Julia, is by far one of the best movies I have seen in my life; and consequently has sparked my interested in the individual Julia Child (Julie Powell was just a bit too melodramatic for me ><). And in my obsession stage, when I saw her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" two volume set, I simply couldn't help myself, however my bank account does want to slap me...

And the first recipe that i've chosen to try is Suprêmes de Volaille aux Champignons, or in layman (aka english) terms, Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms, Red Wine and Cream.

It was DELICIOUS, however I did mess with it a bit, I am ever terrible at following recipes...

so here we are, Julia Child's Suprêmes de Volaille aux Champignon:

Ingredients:

Le (la?) Poulet:
4 Chicken Breasts, or 2 large ones in my case.
a few drops of lemon juice
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
Butter, alot. (ALOT) like 4 tbsp O.O

Le (la?) Jus:

5 tbsp of butter (however I just reused the end of the chicken butter, just adding a bit more if needed)
1 tbsp minced shallot, or spring onion ( I just used a small handful of green onions)
250g sliced mushrooms, or really however much you want in the sauce to mushroom ratio.
some salt, if you want
1/4 cup dry red wine
1/4 white, or brown stock
1 cup cream
salt and pepper
lemon juice, as needed

(I forgot the wine >> and the stock completely until I was writing this up)




And how you do it:

Rub the chicken breast with a few drops of lemon juice, depending on your taste buds, and the salt and pepper.

Heat the butter in an oven proof dish until foaming, roll the chicken in the butter, (from here i changed the traditional recipe, Julia's way-) cover the chicken in baking paper and put into a HOT oven. After 6 minutes touch the top of the breast, of it's still soft, its not done. You want it to be springy to the touch. Set it aside covered in al-foil.



Taxi's way- simply fry the chicken over the stove, until just done. DON'T over cook it because breast has a tendency to become very dry when over cooked. ( I simply found that, maybe it was my breasts, but it took 12 minutes for the chicken to be half cooked, I figured it would just be easier to fry it, because then you also brown the chicken, instead of having a pale white fillet to serve.)


Anyway, with the chicken to the side, if you need more butter melt it into the pre-used skillet, and add your shallots/ spring onions, and fry for a few moments, then add the mushrooms. Saute for a few minutes without browning.





Pour in the wine and stock on a high heat, quickly boiling the liquid away until it is almost syrupy. Then add the cream and boil until slightly thickened.




Take your sauce off the heat and add salt, pepper and lemon juice as needed ( I was scared to add in the lemon juice (I mean whaaat?) but it's actually quite nice!)



serve over the chicken, or the chicken in the sauce, or the sauce in the chicken anyway you want really (:

Taxi xoxo


To be, or not to be (afraid that is)

How embarrassing is it, do you think, if you have dinner with your family at the place you work at?

I seem to have this... thing... for lack of a better word of going to places where people know me... weird huh? for example y'know those coffee places that you go and they seems to now everyone's name and what they do and where they went that weekend... yea i'm not such a fan of those places... I just want coffee, I don't want to have to think of witty things to say at 8 am in the morning.

Not to say that I don't like talking to people, I love talking to people... but I like talking to people that I don't know and will probably never see again in my life.

I'm weird hey... maybe its cause i'm part Dutch "I'm from Hoelland, isn't that veird?!" ( anybody seen Austen Powers here?)

But yes, so behind my back my mother has booked a table at my work for dinner... I feel strange... I mean it'll be in front of my work colleges... with my parents... maybe thats just the teenager in me talking... but fuck man...

But too be honest i'm also slightly excited about finally eating at Hippo Creek... i've always wanted to try the food after smelling it all night... this will be my ultimate chance (:

taxi out xoxo

Inspiration and Crumbles


Inspiration, when found, is better then sex. And this guy, Foodie at Fifteen is inspiration; or too me at least. See me and him = same boat... almost, was in the same boat ( he has succeeded mostly) , but anyway he is the person that I want to be one day.

He was fifteen when he started his blog, i'm sixteen; he wants to be a chef/ pretty much is a chef now, i'm starting my apprenticeship next year; he is a foodie, lo and behold I'm a foodie too!

The only thing different is that he's a much better blogger then me, and he manages to find himself in positions that further his education and experience, I mean he meets the coolest people almost by accident.

But maybe i'm just being jaded, because life is what you make it right, if i don't think i'll ever meet people then I won't right? or atleast that's what i've been taught... that could just be my hippie parents though :P

But anyway, back to my main point, this guy, "Nick" i think his name is, is awesome and you wouldn't be harming yourself one bit by checking out his blog that i've tagged up the top of this post.


Also; today, driven by my hunger and desire to use up all vegies from the Subi Street Markets (still so in love with them all) I made Apple and Rhubarb Crumble; not the best creation i've concocted, I think maybe more butter in the crumble next time, or melted butter.... hmmm... food for thought (no pun intended)

Anyway here we go!

What you need: (in picture form)



Filling:

A few apples, I used 4 ( I got too excited and peeled the one on the end before taking the photo...oops..)
Rhubarb, I had two stalks, however in hindsight with 4 apples maybe use 2 and 1/2 or 3 stalks...
Sugar
Butter
Cinnamon (just a touch for flavouring)

For the Crumble:

Some Flour
Butter
Some brown sugar if you really want it...


Method:

Peel and cut your apples, cut them anyway you like (I stood in front of the pan with a small knife and just cut any which way, however personally I like big chunky pieces)

Cut up your Rhubarb, again anyway you like.

Mean while, you'll need to melt some butter, a good chunk, with a nice sprinkling of sugar, stir them together.

(side note: half my butter had melted by the time i'd taken the photo- so don't take my photo as a reference to the sugar butter ratio)

Once all the butter is melted, and the sugar is incorporated, add your apple and cook it for a few minutes, giving it a good shake every now and then, next dump in the rhubarb.



stir that through with a sprinkling of cinnamon, now you'll just want to cook that for another few minutes until the fruits start to give off their own juices. Let them cool after that.

While your fruits are cooling start making the crumble ( as I said before, my crumble didn't turn out to perfect, try and add melted butter instead and give it a shot- I know I will next time)

combine all the ingredients in a bowl, then all you need to do is rub all of it together, till they resemble bread crumbs, adding each ingredient to the ratio that you think is right.




However if you are a wet blanket and don't want to get butter and flour under you nails (my god it's hard to get out) feel free to use a fork and the side of the bowl, using a press and slide motion, rubbing the butter and flour and sugar together.




I've just found out that i've been making crumble the wrong way my entire life, i've only been putting the crumble on the top! can you believe it? The other day, my friend came into the art studio with a home baked pear crumble from his darling mother, imagine my surprise when I took a chunk with my spoon ( we're teenagers, we don't need plates) and found out that she'd crumbled both sides! Top and bottom! It was a revelation, no longer will i have to hoard the top coating of crumble and annoy my entire family when they get only apple! it was amazing! .... ok so i just went on a bit of a tangent; but the moral of the story- layer the crumble! are you listening?




(oh my god! double the crumble!) ( and you have to wonder why i've put on 3 kg lately)

now you need to whack it in the oven, feel free to plop some butter on the top for the nice golden melty effect, at 180C for about 20 minutes, or atleast until golden, it shouldn't matter too much because your fruits are already cooked (:


Mine didn't turn out as golden as i would have liked, and the crumble was a bit floury, so next time melt the butter, or just add more butter, or maybe if i added butter on the top before baking it... oh well only the next time will tell :P

taxi out xoxo



Monday, September 26, 2011

Welcome to Experiment House!

One place that you totally have to go to if you ever come to Perth, Australia, or god forbid if you live in this city already, one place you simply must check out is the Subiaco Markets- and take a word from the wise the earlier the better, in timing I mean, because boy after 9 am those lines get massive!

But anyway, as I'm sure you can guess I have been recently been aquatinted with the marvellous Subi Markets, this Sunday in fact my family decided to be unpredictable for once in their lives and dragged me with them to the markets for a croissant and coffee from the La Galette De France.

Of course when I got there and saw the largest range of fresh fruits and vegetables i'd ever seen in my life, and for prices that were beyond reasonable, I stood there (embarrassingly) gaping like a fish for a good 3 seconds...

Needless to say I grabbed my parents and dragged them into Subi Markets, before going completely spastic surrounded my vegetables... My parent's could only look on with a confused, dazed look on their faces while I picked up vegetables left and right going "OMG its OKRA!", "the fuck? TARO!" "RUBARB! I can never find you anywhere!" "FENNEL! my LOVE!" "mmmmmm artichokesss...mmmmm..." and so on and so forth...

We took a lot of vegetables home that day... and so now, I have a lot of vegetables in our fridge and with some not the faintest clue how to cook them... Okra, for example.... O.o whaaaat?

And so this is where i've dubbed this week "Experiment Week"

Day one: aka today

On the menu this evening was a beef steak (yeah I know not very exciting but we had to use it up ): ) Stir- fried Okra with tomatoes, and Tempura Fennal with candied Chillis.

p.s. I stole both these recipies from the internet, the Okra just from taste.com, however the tempura fennel was from The Kitchen Crusader, whom I suggest you go check out.

Stir- Fried Okra with Tomatoes

you will need:

2 cups fresh okra, washed, trimmed and sliced.
1 large tomato, peeled and sliced into 8 thin wedged
1/4 cup spring onions, sliced
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper
butter and oil to fry in

What you need to do:

Melt the butter and oil in a skillet or wok.

Dump all the ingredients into said wok and toss around for a good 5-8 minutes

(as you can probably tell i'm not too confident with this recipe, as i've never cooked, or seen anyone cook okra and am sticking to the recipe quiet closely, at least in relation to timing)

I also realise that i forgot to take photos >.>

The end result: It...tasted good shall i say, the parent's loved it... however I felt like I was eating snot... literally, Okra has the consistency of snot... it wasn't too bad however...

Tempura Fennel and Candied Chillis

What you need:

Fennel part:

a large bulb of fennel
2 egg yolks
1 cup iced water
1 cup flour
pinch of salt
oil for deep frying

Chilli bit:
1/4 cup sugar
a cup non-alcholic ginger beer ( or a cup of water and 1/4 cup of sugar)
2 large red chillies, that have been thinly diagonally sliced

What you need to do:

Fennel part:

Heat the oil.

Thinly slice the fennel.

Whisk together the water, salt, flour and egg yolks into a batter.

Dip the fennel slices into the batter, and cook them in the hot oil.

Drain on a paper towel.

Chilli Bits:
Put all the ingredients into a saucepan, bring to the boil, the let simmer for 5-10 minutes stirring occasionally.

End result: OMG AMAZINGI'd never deep fried anything before so i think it turned out rather well thank you very much; fennel has a very strange taste might i say, it could almost be minty at times... you can;t have too much or it gets over powering. But the chillies, oh my FUCK! they were so good, adapting from Julie Powell "Candied Chillies are a revelation, I'm obsessed" (of course in the movie she says braised cucumbers but who cares about that) that pretty much sums up my relation to candied chillies at the moment. OBSESSION

and beef steak is beef steak, just slather it in oil, salt and pepper and let it fry on a really fucking hot pan (:

So hopefully over the next few days i'll be making a mango ketchup ( again from the lady crusader), a rubarb and apple crumble pie thing, i'm not too sure yet, artichokes with... something... maybe hollandaise sauce? homemade hollandaise sauce ;) and asparagus... and some other vegetables that i can't remember...

anyway this is me

taxi xoxo



Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Getting Down and Dirty at Dirty Nelly's


There is one thing that I most in this world... well actually there are a few things, Dada's calling themselves artists ( I mean really?), sunburns (oh the pain!) and those people who prefer Mr Darcey to Mr Knightly ( I mean REALLY?) but most of all... most of all I hate the common cold, something of which I seem to get alot now a days ( I blame the constant exhaustion of my daily life at the moment). So yes, i was snivelling, and coughing, and head aches to the max ( don't even mention the impossible amount of snot that erupted from my small nose) and completely not in the mood to cook.


So, in an effort to make my feel better it was decided we would go out for dinner, to Durty Nelly's in Shafto Lane ( this was probably not the best idea as I was close to collapsing and looking very stoned, as sick people do, the entire time, but we were to make the most of it).


Overall I did enjoy the pub very much, i'd been there once before, however since then they'd changed the menu ):


Durty Nelly's is a type of place to go to when you just want to chill with a smoke, a beer and some good ol' pub food. The staff don't hassle you, the music is something to sing along to, and when you sit outside, on the veranda, its gorgeous!


I had the Chicken Breast stuffed with eggplant, sun dried tomatoes, basil, somethings else, wrapped in prosciutto, on a bed of garlic mash and covered in olive jus. The only thing that i have to say is IT WASN'T DRY! I was so absolutely surprised, in a good way, totally worth having again.



My companion had the more traditional pub meal, a steak of Rump with garlic mash, corn cobbs and Pepper sauce. Now I don't know about you but, corn cobbs? i don't really know about that to be honest... But it was good, though the steak was a bit tough ):



and all was washed down by a nice pint of Heineken, and some lemon lime bitters, in true pub style, though maybe not Irish per say...



Totally worth checking out, especially after work as they have Happy Hour after 5 pm (:

Durty Nelly's Irish Pub on Urbanspoon

taxi xoxo


Friday, September 16, 2011

TOAST!


So this fine morning, we decided to go to Toast for breakfast, has anyone heard of this little cafe?... For those who live in Perth, and do want to go to this awesomely cute little thing its in East Perth, on Royal street, over looking Claisebrook cove (a truly calming site).

The thing about Toast was that you need to know where to look to find it, that is its not really on Royal st, but if you walk down the stairs from Royal st and onto the cove area we found it by the mass of people that were sitting outside bathing in the spring sunlight. And a big crowd usually means that its good right? Yea thats what we thought too (:

But really, it was adorable- the staff were friendly (and awesomely dressed ^^), the coffee was absolutely divine (!!!) and the food was...unique... to say the least, unique and pretty damn tasty too.

What was also cute about the place was that it looked like someone had gone to the Paris flee market, bought a whole heap of shit (posters, cups, books, empty Ricard bottles) and sent it back to Perth to be a decoration in a cafe called "Toast" though I think it should be called "Baguette" instead to carry on with the french theme ><

(the only let down for me was the plastic Ikea cups... I don't really like to drink out of plastic cups if you get me drift...)


(ooooh and see a Ricard and a Martini bottle!! )

And here we have (on the left) Crab and Dill omlette, and to the right is the trout pate on potato and parmesan bread with avocado and poached egg (: and you can see some coffee also THEY HAD MISMATCHING SAUCERS <33333 :D


And finally we had my main meal of the morning Avocado, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce atop yummy corn fritters. (this really amazed me seeing as i don't usually like corn too much... however if I could say one thing, after a while the corn did get a bit over powering just because there was SO MUCH OF IT... but besides that this get the thumbs up.)
not to mention i saw capsicum growing in the pot in the corner, i mean really capsicum? awesome!

If your in the area you should totally give this place a try, its too darn cute to miss out on ^^


also this is my first time giving a restaurant review so... thats for reading (:

Toast on Urbanspoon

taxi xoxo




Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Creme Caramel!



wow... this has been a while... my dear apologies to those who actually read this every once and a while. :D

anywhoo today, on the bus home from school I was over come with the sudden urge to eat something really really sweet! (and really with my lit teacher The Sharpie talking about Red Velvet wedding cakes all afternoon, who could really blame me?) and since I'd become addicted to this awesome guy called The Aubergine Chef (seriously go check him out www.theauberginechef.com, this is his recipe)
I thought I'd try my hand at making my own photo recipe post...thing....

SO, this is what has been shat out of my wednesday afternoon (when I really should be doing homework due tomorrow...><)


First! you will need:

milk - 13oz
eggs - 6oz (or just 3 large ones)
sugar - 3 1/4 oz
then some extra sugar to melt for the carmel bit (:

( I haven't converted the measurements because I thought I didn't want to confuse them, like 13 oz is 384.45 ml, now who really want to pour that out to the exact measurement ><)


Second! what you need to do:

Put the extra sugar into a pot on the stove over a low heat and melt the sugar, giving the saucepan a good shake every once and a while to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom and BURN!! This process is called "caramelisation" as my Food Science teacher continues
to tell me. Now make sure it doesn't get too brown, other wise it will just taste bitter, you wan
t a nice golden rich colour- I let mine get a bit too brown ):

Once the sugar is nice and in a liquid state, you wanna pour it into an oven proof dish, suitable for Creme Caramel, and swirl it around the bottom and a bit of the sides, this makes the lovely caramel sauce over the top of the baked custard.



Next thing you will have to deal with is the heating of the milk, ( a very hard task i'm sure of) remember don't let it boil, just heat it to below the point.

With your milk slowly heating up, and your sugar setting up to the side now is the time to whisk the egg and sugar together to make a uniform consistency. But beware, you will have to stir in the sugar immediately or the sugar might chemically cook it, and sorry guys but the cooking process is coming up a bit later in this recipe, and if the egg is premature it will just be awkward on all of us (*seeedy eyes*) ( oh god there's something wrong with me if I can be dirty with chemically cooked eggs (oh god the images!!!))


Ok so once your eggs have been whisked and your milk has been sufficiently heated you will temper the hot milk into the egg mixture, and 'temper' is just a fancy word for saying pour the milk in slowly at first while whisking the eggs at the same time, so as to make sure the whisked egg doesn't turn to scrambled egg because of the heat of the milk (man there are so many things that want to cook this egg! poor thing :3)
Once it has all been combined you can now feel free to pour it into the previously prepared oven dish that the egg will finally be legitimately cooked in. yay!

Then you will want to put this dish into a water bath, that is put it in a bigger container and fill it up with hot water till half-way up the sides of the oven proof dish that we're using.

Now all you have to do is shove it in the oven at 325F (or about 160C) for 30-40 minutes, this of course depends on the size of your creme caramel, but if you keep an eye on it i'm sure it'll be fine (:

You can tell its done when, if shaken, the entire top has a uniform wave motion. When this occurs, take it out of the oven and let it cool.

Once nicely chilled you can see that it will have set a bit, take it out of the water bath and run a knife around the edges of the dish and invert the custard carefully onto another plate, and voila! you have creme caramel!

Now to the final and most important step, GET A SPOON OUT OF THE DRAWER AND EAT THE JIGGLY BAKED CUSTARDY GOODNESS!! omnomnomnom

taxi out xoxo