My Weekend (An Illegible Photo Essay)

This was the weekend I discovered, or rediscovered, several things.

1. I like apple beer. I like apple beer better straight out of the long neck in the car park of the bottle-o at a late hour, and a sub-zero temperature. I like apple beer best while watching dear friends dance with inflatable dinosaurs.


2. There are iPhone apps that will make your bad, drunken photos look like they were taken badly by your drunk parents back in the seventies. In one saturday night I managed to take about 83 photos of early, early morning fog and lamplights in Canberra. My apple-beer brain thought fog and lamplights were the most original photographic subject known to man.



3. Most importantly, all these factors conspired the next morning to convince me that the only thing that would alleviate apple-beer hangover was Gordon Ramsay style scrambled eggs.


Bad photo; good food. I like to think it encapsulates the paradox that is Gordon Ramsey: how can such an off-putting man create such tasty, tasty breakfasts? I don't know, but you have to trust me when I say these are the BEST SCRAMBLED EGGS I have ever had.





For those of you who don't want to look at Gordon Ramsey (I cannot blame you), these are the basics:

• Crack two or three eggs into a cold, non-stick saucepan.

• Add half to one tablespoon or so of butter.

• Put on a low heat, and stir (with a rubber spatula) continuously until eggs are well combined and butter is melted.

• Turn heat up slightly, and keep stirring until eggs thicken, and scramble. This might take a while, but it will be worth it.

• Season at the end of cooking, not the beginning! Salt does bad things to raw eggs.
  

Don't bother to add cream; you don't need it. Serve with toast and coffee and the slowly returning memories of last night.

The Parts Make Up The Whole

About a week ago, The Boy - on kitchen duty - asked me what I wanted for dinner. "A delicious feast!" is what I asked for, and a delicious feast is what I received. Two dollar pork buns courtesy of our local Asian grocer, wok-fried greens and a lovely eggy rice dish. The parts made up the whole, and the whole meal was delicious.

These two side dishes are perfect mid-week fare, quick and simple and cheap as chips. Get your hands on some sesame oil, it is really the key ingredient in these two recipes, and keep a few pork-buns in your freezer too. Yum-cha in your own kitchen!

Wok Fried Greens

You can use any veggies you like for this dish, this recipe contains my favourites:

• Bok Choy (or pak choy, or choy sum. Whichever you prefer)
• Brocolini (or brocoli) cut into bite sized pieces.
  
• Shredded cabbage
• Green beans
• Snow peas
• Baby corn (not strictly a green but delicious nonetheless)
• Thickly diced zucchini

• One tablespoon of light soy sauce
• One tablespoon of oyster sauce
  
• Three or four drops of sesame oil
• A pinch of chilli, if you'd like a little kick

This dish is simplicity itself. You'll need fresh produce, minimal accoutrements, and a red-hot-wok. Prepare your veggies, heat your wok, then toss everything in and off you go! If you don't have a wok, try to avoid using a non-stick frypan. The flavour of this dish is all in the burning, so none of that fancy-pants teflon thank you very much! Resist the temptation to add extra oil - the vegetables should char, so keep your wok as dry as possible. Remove when everything begins to burn at the edges, and serve immediately. A delicious and nutritious side dish.

Eggy Fried Rice

• 1 cup long grain rice
• 2 eggs
• vegetable oil, light soy sauce, a few drops of sesame oil

Another simple side dish, this makes a good base for other fried rice dishes too. Fried rice is Asia's answer to bubble and squeak - you can throw anything in there (within reason) and chances are it will be tasty!

Cook rice as per packet instructions, stand aside and allow to cool completely*. Heat a little vegetable oil in your wok- just enough to coat the bottom - whisk two eggs together and pour them over the hot oil. As they begin to cook, splash some soy sauce over them, then scramble with a fork. This dish is best when the eggs are half way between runny and solid, they need about a minute before the rice goes in. Throw in your cold rice and toss everything around until the egg scramble breaks up and disperses. Drip in a little sesame oil, a little extra soy to taste, and keep tossing until the dish is warmed through and the rice has yellowed slightly. Then eat, eat, eat.

* When cooking fried rice, the temperature of the rice itself is important. Using cold rice prevents your dish from turning into fried mush. Any long-gran rice is suited for frying once cooled, but basmati is best as it has a lower starch content than other types of rice and is less likely to soften when re-heated. Leftover takeaway rice is perfect for use in this dish, if it's sitting in the fridge lookin' a little dry, all the better for it!

"Eggs" by Stephen Fry

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One of my favourite food discoveries of recent years came via Stephen Fry in the pretty good film of the very good book, V for Vendetta. In this particular scene, Evey is staying with TV show host Stephen Fry (I’m sure his ‘character’ has a name, but let’s stop pretending he’s not just playing Stephen Fry!) and he makes her breakfast: eggs fried in a hole in a slice of bread.

You’ve probably – unlike me – heard of it before. It’s pretty genius, after all, and comes with a slew of cool names. Toad in the hole. Eggy in a basket. One Eyed Jack. Hobo Toast. Not sure how that last one came about…

Needless, to say, upon tasting the Hobo Toast, Evey flips out. “V made me breakfast just like this!” She points out, a fact I am conveniently ignoring to write this blog. “Maybe I am V?” Stephen retorts. Well, you certainly have the same talent for breakfast. I tell ya, put me in a totalitarian world, and I am totally shacking up with the one man who can source butter and eggs. And homoerotic art.

There are a million ways to make it, but this is how I do it. I would recommend using that bread you made, remember? Honestly, unbelievably delicious. If not, any other thick sliced bread.


Melt 1 tbsp butter in a frying pan until it begins to bubble.

Cut or tear a hole in a thick slice of bread. The hole will probably be around 3ish cms in diameter, but to be honest: it doesn’t really matter.

Coat the bread in the melted butter, and fry on one side until crispy.

Flip the bread over, and break an egg into the hole. Fry until the egg is a bit more than half done. You should be able to see the egg cooking from the bottom up.

Flip again, cook until you think the egg is done to your liking. This is usually ascertained the scientific way, by poking.

Add salt, pepper, and then pick it up with your hands and eat it. And watch Stephen Fry in a sketch from A Little Bit of Fry and Laurie telling you how to be gorgeous:


Thanks, Stephen Fry! You can also see him on QI, series F, screening on ABC every Tuesday night at 9:30. Catch up on missed episodes here.

Sunday Morning Glory

As I mentioned in a previous post, when it comes to breakfast I'm not your traditional toast-or-cereal kinda gal. In fact, I can't remember the last time I had cereal, and I intend to keep it that way. The last breakfast-themed-post was something to eat when you're on your way out the door. This one is for those weekend mornings where after sleeping in, breakfast turns inevitably into lunch. The mushroom recipe I stole from my sister many years ago, and have been enjoying ever since. Couscous is a much loved staple in my house, stemming in part from my aversion to toast. The poached eggs - well. You may have your own method of poaching eggs, if so, I encourage you to go for it. But I have tried for years to get that perfect poached egg without any luck. I've tried swirling the water, different kinds of vinegar, everything. And then I discovered cheating...

Marisa's Mustardy Mushrooms, and Easy Poached Eggs

What You Will Need:

• One (or two) fresh free range egg(s)

• 8-10 button mushrooms

• 2 tsp dijon mustard

• 2 tsp mustard seeds

• 1 tbsp sour cream

• A dash worcester sauce

• Olive oil

• Butter

• Couscous (or bread, if you so wish!)
  

What You Will Need to Do:

• Heat about 1/2 tbsp of butter in a fry pan.

• Slice mushrooms and add.

• After a couple of minutes add mustard and mustard seeds. Stir to make sure all the mushrooms are coated.

• Add the sour cream and dash of worcester sauce. Stir. You should have something like a sauce at this point. Let it bubble away on a low heat while you make your eggs.

• You'll need to give it a stir everyone now and then. The sauce should cook down until it's sticky and creamy, and some of the mushrooms are browning.

How to Poach Eggs (the cheating way)

• Put glad wrap (or cling film) over the top of a cup or mug, ensuring that it is concave enough to hold a large egg

• Rub the plastic with a bit of oil

• Crack the egg into the plastic, and gently bring the edges together so that the egg is sitting in a little pouch, ensuring there is a pocket of air at the top

• Twist the top together, and peg it closed

• Tie your little egg bundle to a spoon handle long enough to rest on top of a pot of boiling water, ensuring that the egg will be completely submerged (but not touching the bottom or sides of the pot. That will end badly, trust me)

• Lower into boiling water, and let cook for 3 - 5 minutes, or until done to your liking
  

• Unwrap and voila - perfectly cooked, smooth, round, restaurant quality poached eggs. No messing around with whirlpools or vinegar required!

A couple of minutes before the eggs are done, prepare couscous.

I never bother with the whole saucepan, bringing things to the boil deal; just add your cous cous to a measuring cup and double the volume by adding boiling water . (ie, for 1/4 cup of couscous, add enough water to bring it up to 1/2 cup.) Stir with a fork, and cover for a couple of minutes. It's done when the water has been fully absorbed.

Remember that butter you saved by not frying your eggs? Yeah, we're going to use it now. Stir about a tsp through the couscous. If you've never liked couscous, you probably were missing this crucial step. Butter makes everything nice.


Pile everything on a plate, poached egg on top, and go to town, my friends.


It may seem a bit involved for breakfast, but if you know what you're doing, this recipe can easily be made in under 10 minutes. And it's worth it - trust me.