Recipe - Vietnamese chicken salad

I was watching the Lifestyle Channel the other night & stumbled across one of Bill Grangers cooking shows. It was perfect timing, really.  He made his Vietnamese Chicken Salad which is exactly what me & Mr YourLocalMarkets needed after what seemed like a few too many successive nights of red meat.

The recipe was pretty basic (important for this pretend cook!) so I decided to make it the next night. And the best thing is that there was a lot of food, mostly raw, crunchy & light and I felt great after I ate it. And the next morning I had loads of energy in my spin class. Yey!

Ingredients
Chicken Salad

• 3 pieces 200g chicken breast fillets
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• sea salt
• White pepper use black if that is all you have
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 1 cup Vietnamese mint leaf
• 1 cup Asian basil leaf or basil leaves
• 4 cups Chinese cabbages finely shredded (I used about 1/4 chinese cabbage & this was HEAPS)
• 1 cup carrot peeled and finely julienned

I also added some crushed peanuts to sprinkle at the end.

Dressing

• 60 ml Lime juice
• 60 ml Fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons Rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• 2 very finely chopped Garlic Cloves optional ( I used 1)
• 3 finely sliced red Asian shallots or 1/2 red onion (I only used 1 shallot)
• 2 small very finely chopped Red chilli's remove the seeds if you don't like the heat (I only used 1 chilli & it was hot enough, but I'm a woos sometimes)

Instructions
Salad

• Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F/Gas 7).
• Heat a frying pan over a high heat, and while the pan is heating, brush the chicken with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
• Place the chicken skin-side down and sear for 2 minutes, turn and sear for another minute.
• Put the chicken on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Leave to rest for 20 minutes.
• Shred the chicken into thin strips with your hands and place in a large bowl.
• Add the remaining ingredients and toss to combine.

Dressing
Place all the ingredients in a small bowl and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Serves 4.  If making it for 2, don't dress the whole salad, just serve it into bowls or onto plates & dress separately & you'll have leftovers for lunch the next day.

Recipe - Sage roasted free range pork belly

I bought some free range pork from the delightful folk at Ormiston Free Range Pork who are based in Mudgee but we do have lovely free range meats at Your Local Markets on the Gold Coast in Queensland that you can use for this recipe.

This recipe is courtesy of Donna Hay's beautiful "Seasons" cookbook.  I've also added a homemade apple sauce to go with the pork.

Ingredients

Pork
2 heads of garlic (I used one)
1/4 cup olive oil
2.3 kg pork belly, on the bone (I used a kilo as there were only 2 of us)
1/3 cup sea salt flakes
4 bunches sage

Apple sauce
2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced into thin slices
1 cup water
3 tbs caster sugar
squeeze lemon juice
sprinkle of ground cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C (350F).  Arrange the garlic over the base of a baking dish.  Rub the olive oil all over the pork and rub the salt into the skin.  Place skin side down on top of the garlic and cook for 3 hours.

While the pork is cooking, drop the apples, water, lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon into a saucepan.

Simmer over a low heat until water reduces significantly (so that you can just see the water amongst the apple pieces).  Cool and then blend or spoon into a food processor and blend until smooth.

Or you can leave it a little chunky if you like it like that. I blended mine into a smooth apple sauce.

Back to the pork: Increase the heat to 180C (355F).  Turn over the pork, add the sage.  and cook for a further 30 minutes or until the skin is golden and crunchy.

 

This was truly-ruly, voted by 2 roast pork piglets as "the best roast pork ever cooked in our house".

Serves 4-6, depending on how hungry and piggy your guest are ;-)

Recipe - Chinese roast duck salad & pineapple with cashew nuts & chilli lime dressing

This recipe comes courtesy of Neil Perry's "Good Food" cookbook.  The chinese ducks are available roasted from any good chinese barbeque shop.  I would not even attempt to roast one myself, even if my chef brother has assured me it is easy.

I also added lychees.  Because they're yet another thing I'm obsessed with.

Ingredients
Salad
1 Chinese roast duck, flesh and skin sliced (you can ask them to do it for you)
1 sweet pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into bite sized chunks
About 10 lychees, with the seed removed and torn into a few bits
2 lebanese cucumbers, halved lengthways and sliced on the diagonal
10 cherry tomatoes (I always add more)
4 French shallots, halved and thinly sliced (although for non-onion fans, it does not lose anything if you omit like I did)
90g (3 1/4 oz/1 cup) bean sprouts
1 handful coriander (cilantro) leaves
1 small handful mint leaves
2 spring onions (scallions) sliced on the diagonal (same comment applies to the shallots)
sea salt
100g (3 1/2 oz/ 2/3 cup) cashew nuts, roasted until golden, roughly chopped

Dressing
1 garlic clove
3 wild green chillis, roughly chopped (I used 1 small red chilli)
sea salt
1 tbs caster sugar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
juice of 2 limes

Serves 4

Instructions

Prepare the dressing first.  In a mortar, place the garlic, chilli and a pinch of salt and pound with a pestle until a paste forms.

Add the sugar, fish sauce and lime juice to taste and stir to combine.

For the salad, put all the ingredients except the cashew nuts in a bowl, add dressing and mix well.

Divide the salad among four large plates or bowls and sprinkle with the cashews.

Recipe - Grilled zucchini with caprese salad and pesto (Meatless Monday)

This recipe comes courtesy of the March 2010 edition of Delicious Magazine.  However I substituted freshly made pesto for the rocket salsa.  If you're interested in the original recipe, click here.

Searching high and low for some interesting "Meatless Monday" dishes I stumbled across this in the March 2010 edition of Delicious Magazine and decided to give it a whirl.  The recipe recommends serving with a meat-based dish, which of course you can do, but this served 2 of us (with a big salad) for Meatless Monday.  It was so good this will form part of my repetoire until Mr Your Local Markets gives me the old nudge to let me know (gently) that he's sick of it.

Ingredients

4 zucchini, very thinly sliced lengthways
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
4 vine-ripened tomatoes, seeds removed, chopped. I used beautiful grape cherry tomatoes for their flavour.
2 x 120g buffalo mozzarella balls*, drained, chopped. I substituted this for Mudgee Persian Fetta.
1/2 cup basil leaves

Pesto Sauce

1 cup basil leaves, stems removed
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
Handful good quality parmesan cheese or Grana Padano
1/2 cup (120ml) extra virgin olive oil
3 tbs lightly toasted pine nuts
Salt to season

Instructions

For pesto, combine all dry ingredients in blender or food processor and blend, drizzling oil in as you go.  Feel free to use less or more oil, as I don't measure, I guess quantities ;-)  This is why I am a lousy baker.

Preheat char grill or barbecue to medium-high. Brush zucchini with oil and grill, turning once, for 5 minutes until lightly charred. Arrange zucchini on a platter and top with tomato and mozzarella/fetta. Season, then drizzle with pesto and garnish with basil leaves.

Recipe - Paprika spatchcock with tabbouleh, rocket salad and yoghurt

This recipe comes courtesy of the March 2010 edition of Delicious Magazine.  This was my first attempt at cooking spatchcock, so I wanted it to be yummy.  I searched around for a suitable spatchcock recipe and when I couldn't find one, I found inspiration in the Delicious Magazine I had bought the previous day.

I substituted chicken for these free-range Thirlmere spatchcock from Urban Food Market.  I also substituted quinoa with cracked wheat, but a chunky variety, just because it looked a little different.

Ingredients

1 cup (200 g) cracked wheat or quinoa
1 bunch flat leaf parsely, leaves picked, finely chopped
2 tbs finely chopped mint or coriander (I used mint, and used more)
8 cherry tomatoes, however don't restrict yourself.  Feel free to bump up the raw food intake in all meals!
3 spring onions (I only used one - not a huge fan - and sliced it really finely)
1/4 cup (60 ml) extra virgin oilive oil (I reduced the amount because it felt like A LOT of oil!)
2 tbs lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp paprika, plus extra to sprinkle
1 tsp ground cumin
pinch cayenne pepper
1 tsp caster sugar
100g low fat thick greek yoghurt
1 tbs olive oil
Few handfuls of rocket
pine nuts
oil & lemon juice for rocket salad

Prepare the cracked wheat or quinoa according to the packet directions.  Allow to cool after cooking. Add herbs, tomato and spring onions and toss to combine.

Combine oil, lemon juice, 1/2 tsp paprika (warning, not all of it like I did), cumin, cayenne pepper and sugar, then season.

Place yoghurt in a bowl and drizzle over 2 tsp dressing, then sprinkle with some paprika.  Toss cracked wheat or quinoa salad in remaining dressing.

Toss rocket, pine nuts, oil and lemon.

Preheat grill or barbeque to medium-high.  Mix oil and remaining paprika, season, then brush over spatchcock.  Grill until cooked (ensure flesh is not pink, but cooked through). Ours took around 20 mins.

Serve with cracked wheat or quinoa salad, rocket salad and yoghurt.