Sesame oven-fried chicken (Finger Lickin’ Good)

My kids will eat chicken, ham, fish and sausages. The other white meats. Meat isn’t allowed to be red (or pink or brown) because that’s ‘yucky’.

So my kids eat a lot of “chicken”. Notice the inverted commas… “chiiiicken” which between you and me, can be anything from beef to pork to veal and anything in between. As long as it is disguised, usually by a layer of crispy crumbs.

Hone-made fast food (image courtesy Jason Thomas)

 

One of their favourites is the crumbed chicken tenderloins that a number of the big chicken companies make, and that the fast food companies also deep-fry lovingly for our youth. So when I came across this recipe in Essence, I thought ‘righto, I am going to make my own ‘fast food’ and they are going to LOVE IT’.

Any dinner that require shaking food around in a snaplock bag has to be a winner

It certainly is quick. Beat an egg with some milk, dip the tenderloin, then throw one at a time into a zip-lock bag which has flour, garlic powder, paprika and sesame seeds.

Is that food Mum? I want it. I don't care if it's raw chicken...

Then I started showing off. Despite the fact that the baby was hollering at the gate (it had been at least ten minutes since she ate and was – apparently –starving) I decided to double-dip my chicken. What? I didn’t want to waste all the leftover egg.

The recipe then suggests tipping half a cup of melted butter over the battered tenderloins. Now I love butter, I’m a great fan, but even I baulked at the thought of half a cup of melted butter on half a kilo of chicken. I opted for the spray oil instead.

By this stage though, all three of the kids were wailing that they were staaaaaarving. I had a banana cake baking in the oven but the prospect of listening to the terrible three moaning about how sore their tummies were for another half an hour was too much. And I had already poured my first glass of champagne.

It's not really that much... it's just the angle of the camera. Right?

 

So I put the tenderloins into the oven with the banana cake, which subsequently ended up with a lovely savoury garlicky flavour.

In 15 minutes they were done.

This was how they turned out.

Just like the book!

 

Well, if I must be honest, those were the three best ones that I served up for my husband. This is how the rest of them turned out.

Not quite so much like the book

 

Maybe I should have opted for the butter, then they might not have stuck quite so much when I turned them over.

Regardless, I really thought I was onto a winner with this one. They looked like they might have come out of a fast food box, but they were 100% home made.

This was the verdict:

Miss almost-six: What’s this crunchy stuff? There are bits in it? Are they nuts, I don’t like nuts. What’s this red dot? Is that chilli. I don’t like chilli.

Miss three: where’s the tomato sauce? Can I take the crunchy skin off?

Miss one: gronf gronf, nope, I’m going to chuck it on the floor

Husband: needs sauce

Me: you people suck, I’m going eat your leftovers

And so I did.

 

My thoughts

My kids are spoiled and it is entirely my own fault.

Oyako Donburi (Stone Age Chicken)

This little beauty is the ultimate in one-dish cooking, which was lucky, because most of our kitchen utensils and dishes were dirty and piled high on the sink.

This is what it looks like when you use the correct ingredients (image courtesy Jason Thomas)

 

It was just one of those days. Collect one kid from school, try and spend some ‘quality time’, then get to daycare to collect the other two, then start the mother juggling act:

-          Hungry screaming baby who wants food, no I want to be picked up, no I want food, dirty nappy, where’s my food, she stepped on meeeeeee

-          Hungry six year old who swears she’s ‘staaaaarving’

-          Homework requirements, ‘how do you spell rhinoceros’

-          Accompanying three year old to toilet, ‘why are wees yellow?’

-          Breaking up fights

-          Feed the baby

-          Bath the baby

-          Convincing the other kids to keep their clothes on

-          And try and cook dinner for four people all with different preferences and requirements.

And I managed this without a glass of wine. No seriously.

Chicken donburi is the classic chicken and egg dish. In a saucepan you bring dashi stock, soy sauce, sugar and mirin to a boil. Then you add sliced onion and boil a bit. Then you add chopped chicken thigh and simmer. When the chicken is done and the stock has reduced, you throw in some beaten eggs, which cook in the heat, setting everything like a big chicken-and-egg existential omelette, which you serve with steamed rice.

Sounds gross? It’s really really not.

Ok, maybe a little gross

Except in my kitchen things never seem to go smoothly, especially at 5pm when I have three feral kids all dying of something or other.

The recipe requires mirin. Mirin is a rice wine, a bit like sake but with less booze.  Personally I don’t know why you’d bother, which is probably why when I looked in the cupboard we didn’t have mirin. We had sushi rice seasoning and rice wine vinegar. Crap.

AND they were both out of date. Double crap.

2010? Man, that was three years ago!

 

But I had passed the point of no return with this dinner. My limited remaining brain capacity could not comprehend another dish made with chicken thigh and beaten eggs, so I was forging ahead, regardless of having the wrong ingredients that would probably give us all food poisoning.

I didn’t know which of the alternative ingredients to use, so I used a bit of both. I also threw in some Swiss Brown mushrooms because I had found another donburi recipe which called for them, and I thought it would be a great way to up the veggie quota of dinner, especially since there was no chance in hell I was making any sides tonight.

Sorry, wrong eggs

 

When my husband finally stepped through the door, he was greeted by two naked little girls playing Barbie dolls and one rather grumpy wife. We threw the kids in the bath, begging them to play quietly and not wake the baby up while I finished making dinner.

It smelled great.

It's one of those dishes that taste better than it looks

We sat down to eat.

And we both choked on the first mouthful. It wasn’t the out of date seasonings – it was the rice. I had cooked basmati and it was so very very wrong for this Japanese dish.

‘Don’t we have sushi rice,’ he asked bravely. I ignored him.

‘I appreciate you cooking dinner every night,’ he continued. ‘But you don’t have to. We can have sandwiches,’ he said.

I ignored him.

I wish I’d had that glass of wine.

 

My thoughts

What thoughts? I told you my brain capacity is severely limited.

Fish with Star Anise (I Think I Made a Moon-Rock)

They say a cook should never blame their tools when things go wrong.

They don’t say you should never blame your husband though.

Tonight’s dinner was meant to be a nod to his healthy eating. Maybe not the rice part, or the half cup of brown sugar. But certainly the fish part was meant to be healthy.

It's safe to say that mine did NOT end up looking like this (image courtesy Jason Thomas)

Snapper fillets are lightly dusted with cornflour, pan-fried and then steamed in a fragrant sauce made with sesame oil, garlic, ginger, brown sugar, soy sauce, five spice and star anise.

The recipe promised a sticky sweet sauce.

I left my husband in charge and what we ended up with was a burnt disk of aniseed caramel. Except even that sounds so much nicer than it actually was.

It solidfied to the density of a volcanic moon-rock and smelled AWFUL

It’s not really his fault. I had been dragging my feet, as I am wont to do at the end of the weekend. I didn’t really feel like cooking so when he started getting the ingredients out and began mixing the sauce, I was hardly inclined to step in and take over.

I did remember that according to the rules of the Project I was meant to be making the recipes. But I made the damn rules so I feel justified in breaking them. As long as I am present in the room when the recipe is being made, then surely that must count.

He put the sauce on to reduce as I tended to a one year old with a broken leg, a three year old with a grazed knee and a five year old with a sore foot that "was probably broken and so Daddy must X-ray it and make me a cast."

Uh. No.

At this point I realised I had neglected to mention to him that I had only bought half as much fish as the recipe required, therefore the sauce he was simmering was twice as much as we needed. He didn’t dignify my declaration with a response.

The sauce is bubbling merrily away while the kids complain loudly in the background

The sauce had reduced to a thin syrup and was smelling pretty good. At this point he put the fish into the pan, seared it quickly, tipped the sauce in, and turned down the heat.

Except he didn’t turn down the heat.

He turned it up full and began boiling the fish into the same sticky black consistency they make roads with.

What do you mean it doesn't look like the picture in the book?

"The burning smell is just caramelisation," he told me.

"I think it’s just a burning smell," I told him, taking the lid off.

We stared into the pan at our $30 a kilo fish. As soon as the lid came off the syrupy sauce which had been bubbling away merrily only moments before, suddenly began to solidify.

"Quick, grab a bowl and line it with paper towel," he hissed at me. He is remarkably good in a crisis.

We took the fish out and began scraping the sludge out of the pan into the bowl. It was hardening so quickly the spoon almost stuck to pot, and long shards of black savoury sugar set as I tried to scrape it onto the paper towel.

Luckily the stir fried vegetables with pine nuts he had made as a side (and had been tending to lovingly while he was wilfully neglecting the fish) was both delicious and not burned.

Now fish is supposed to flake. It is supposed to melt in the mouth.

I had to get a steak knife for mine. It was a little tough.

This is not the first time this has happened.

My thoughts:

I imagine in the hands of someone more competent with fish than we, this would be a beautiful dish.

Today was not that day.

Szechuan Duck with Mango Salsa (I Could be on MasterChef with this One)

When I was presented with the opportunity to have a practically kid-free Saturday night, I knew I wanted to cook something a little bit special. Our baby is 10 months and at that horrible screaming-in-public-stage, so going out for dinner wasn’t an option. I wanted to try something new, but also appropriate for the 40 degree day. Duck with mango salsa seemed to fit the bill.

The image from the book is basically food porn it is so beautiful (courtesy Jason Thomas)

Duck breasts are rubbed with a mixture of crushed Szechuan peppercorns, cinnamon and five spice, and after being pan-fried and oven-baked, served with a salsa of mangoes, pawpaw, cucumber, red onion which is dressed with mint, chilli, sesame oil, ginger and sherry vinegar.

You need to poke your breasts before rubbing them

 

My first problem arose when I had a panic attack in the middle of Woolies. My shopping list was so long it went over both sides of my paper, and I hadn’t clearly marked what ingredients were for my duck dinner, and what was for the salads I had planned on making for a BBQ later in the week. The trolley was overflowing, the shop was overflowing and all I wanted was to escape.

I made a few bad calls, and forgot two of the ingredients. Oh well. I never follow a recipe properly anyway.

The salsa is fabulous on its own

 

My next problem was when I started cooking, I didn’t read the recipe from start to finish. I skipped to the bit that told me how to make the salsa, thinking that it would need to ‘brew’ for a while as the duck was cooking. Pity I didn’t read the bit about the duck needing to sit out of the fridge for an hour before being cooked.

Sidenote: always read the entire recipe before you start.

At this point I needed a drink

When I mentioned this to my husband, he gave me a look that clearly told me he thought I was an idiot. However what he said was simply: ‘I’m not going to say anything.’

He is much more restrained than me: I always tell him off for not reading the recipe.

This is one salad I enjoy eating, maybe because it's full of fruit

I started by dicing the mango, pawpaw, cucumber and red onion. I’m not a fan of raw onion, even red, so I only used about 2 tablespoons in total. I also added a handful of tiny red tomatoes from the garden and a sprig of coriander, because I love coriander. I had forgotten to buy the chilli, but I figure I don’t need any extra heat in the kitchen when it is 40 degrees outside.

By the time I had read the recipe and realised I was meant to rub the spices into the duck and let it rest for an hour before cooking, it was already close to our dinner time (even the absence of the kids doesn’t mean we eat late).

I mixed 2/3 of a tablespoon of Szechuan seasons [perhaps my greatest culinary faux pas tonight, as my local Woolies didn’t stock Szechuan peppercorns as the recipe required], and ½ teaspoon each of salt, cinnamon and Chinese five spice.

I rubbed it on the breasts, not feeling remotely giggly. Three kids will do that to you.

 

My breasts got a serious tan

I was getting the hurry up from the gallery so it only sat for a short while before panfrying in a hot pan for two minutes each side. I panicked for a minute when I realised the recipe didn’t say whether or not to put oil in the pan. You always put oil in the pan, right? My husband pointed out duck skin is extremely fatty, so I decided to follow the recipe and didn’t oil the pan. It smoked like the Marlborough man and I needed to put the exhaust fan on, and when I shook the pan there were little bursts of flame. I felt like I was on Masterchef.

Then it went into the oven (180C) for 11 minutes. The recipe said 10-15 minutes. My rather small breasts probably only needed 10 minutes, as even though they were still juicy after resting for ten minutes, they weren’t pink. Aren’t breasts meant to be pink?

Dinner was served and it looked fantastic. I also dished up a side of asparagus. There was a moment of awkwardness about whether or not to eat the skin. After all, that was the part with all the spice and flavour, but a few dreary comments from my husband about cholesterol quickly put a stop to any enjoyment I might have had eating the skin.

C'mon, it's just like the book! Winner

In the end it was a successful meal, despite forgetting some of the primary ingredients (we both agreed that the chilli would have helped). Duck is very filling, even when you leave the delicious, tasty skin and fat on the plate. I still managed to find room for dessert though.

My thoughts

Because you can prepare a lot of it in advance, this recipe would be great for a dinner party. It looks spectacular and tastes fresh and zingy. It’s not cheap though, the breasts cost about $7 each and mangoes and pawpaw are not the cheapest fruit in the fruit bowl.

It’s worth it though, for a special occasion. Such as the kids having a sleepover at Grandma’s.

Ginger Cake (The Schmuck with the 20 Bucks)

This is a big cake. A celebration cake. I had originally intended to make it for my mum for her birthday, but then I got carried away by a 12 course degustation, and everyone knows big cakes have no place in the tiny world of degustation.

It has inner beauty (photo courtesy Jason Thomas)

So I’m not quite sure how I ended up making it not with the intention to eat it, but to donate it to the school cake stall.

My beautiful celebration cake. At a cake stall. State election. Whoopy doo.

Part of me thinks that beautiful cakes belong on the cake stall. Who has ever rocked up to their local school, clutching a handful of cash and then stared at a trestle table of packet cakes and plainly iced butter cakes. It makes you sad.

Luckily I had three half-empty bottles of golden syrup in the cupboard

Before I had kids, I used to love election day, not because I particularly liked voting, but I always knew the local school would have a cake stall. But before I had kids, looking at a box of cupcakes that had obviously been decorated by a six year old used to make me shudder.

Now I have kids I still love election day for the cake stall, except now I have to work on the damn cake stall, and I’m not so traumatised about a cake decorated by a child. Let’s be honest, they’re a lot more generous with the lollies than we are.

But it’s always nice to find a special cake on election day, and I think this one meets the mark.

Golden syrup and brown sugar. Eggs and flour. Ginger and cinnamon. That’s pretty much it.

The recipe book describes it as fudgy and best baked the day before to let the flavours develop. Sounded perfect to me.

Because I needed the oven for dinner I thought I would make the cake after lunch. I thought there would be plenty of time before heading to school to collect my eldest.

I took my time.

I stopped to play with the baby.

I stopped to help dress a Barbie doll.

I stopped to check my email.

I didn’t read the recipe properly. Again.

That 40-50 minutes baking time, on closer inspection actually said 80 to 90 minutes cooking time. Almost an entire hour extra.

Crap.

It came out of the oven just as the school bell rang

 Making it was simple enough, except for the fact it was such a big cake, my largest tin proved a bit inadequate and the cake began overflowing the tin.

A generous layer of lemon icing fixed that, and I must admit I was quite impressed with the finished result. It was a pity I wouldn’t get to try it though. I bundled it in to a box and put it under the pram for the walk to school.

Cake box stylishly decorated by Miss Five

The Awesome Grandparents were joining us. On arrival at the cake stall I handed over my box, it was opened and perused and $20 written on the lid in big black texta.  Twenty bucks? It was a stupendous cake but what schmuck was going to pay twenty bucks for it at a school cake stall?

Turns out that schmuck was me. My mother-in-law who hadn’t previously seen the cake at home, wandered past and stopped in front of my cake. ‘That one!,’ she said to the lady manning the stall.  She opened her purse to discover she didn’t have enough cash. Fair enough, who expects to spend 20 bucks at a school cake stall?

So I fished through my wallet and pulled out a twenty and handed it over. 

My cake went back under the pram and I wheeled it home again.

My thoughts

Don't try and hide a sunken middle by filling it with icing. It doesn't work

 

This was a lovely moist cake, although it probably could have spent ten minutes less in the oven and been happier for it.  It is more of a spice cake than just a ginger cake, but it would be delicious with a spiced cream or a cinnamon icecream.

Worth the $20. And it goes to a good cause.

Slow Cooked Lamb (Another Disaster)

It looked so pretty in the photo. Juicy, still pink. A leg of lamb, flavoured with lemon and herbs and garlic and slow cooked in the oven for five hours.

This is what it was meant to look like (image courtesy Jason Thomas)

 

And before I put mine in the oven, it didn’t look too bad either.

Well, it looked like it had potential

But then I cooked it and this is what happened.

Ummmm, yum?

‘What happened to the chicken, Mummy?’ asked my three year old (we call all meat chicken, because they’re more likely to actually eat it).

‘Nothing happened to the chicken,’ I snapped. ‘It’s meant to look like this. Caramelised…’ I muttered.

‘Sure it is,’ said my husband. ‘Needs gravy.’

He was right.

The outside with the lemon and oregano and fennel seeds tasted great. It was just the inside bit that wasn’t. I had overcooked it: how un-Australian.

Lamb is NOT meant to be brown all over

 

My thoughts:

Now I need a recipe to use up half a leg of slightly overcooked lamb… any thoughts?

Beetroot and Orange Salad (Old Dogs Can Learn New tricks)

Making this dish probably signified a point of growth in my ability as a cook, a maturity perhaps.

It’s not that the dish was particularly hard or technical: it’s a salad - you chop things up.

No, it marked the day that I actually thought about consequences of what I was about to do, and took action to prevent the inevitable. In other words – I wore gloves.

You should always keep some gloves in the bedroom, um kitchen. You never know what you will need them for

Back step a few years to Christmas 2011. I had just bought Julie Goodwin’s second cookbook, even better than her first, because it felt like something my family would have put together, except with some fancy bits and bobs thrown in. I had rather grandly decided to make pots of chutneys and jam for family and friends and she had a tasty looking recipe for chilli ginger jam (try it, it’s awesome).

As I was making massive quantities of this jam I had bought dozens of red chillies.

And I started chopping.

With no gloves.

I didn’t really notice anything at first, but then after I had my hands in the oven numerous times and began handling the roasted capsicums, my hands started burning. Like they had been touched by the devil himself.

For two days my hands scorched. I couldn’t touch the baby, I couldn’t rub my eyes. I could only sit there and tell myself ‘next time, wear gloves’.

I wonder who the first person who thought 'we should definitely eat that!' was

 

There is no chilli in this salad, but there is something even more cunning: fresh beetroot. This stuff stains like a… well, like a beetroot. Clothes, benches and particularly hands.

It looks like a bit like a scene from CSI

 

So, it was a simple matter of gloving up to wash the beetroot before wrapping them in foil and roasting them for an hour and a half. Then I double-gloved when it was time to rub the skins off. I make a lot of mistakes, but I certainly try not to repeat the same ones (more than once or twice).

Purple and green: colours of the feminist revolution

Did you know you can eat the leaves of the beetroot plant? Well now you do. Together with some baby rocket, I threw the beetroot leaves in a bowl, added the chopped beetroots, some roasted red onion and segments of orange. Over the top I crumbled feta and tossed some roughly chopped pecans.

The dressing was a tasty combination of seeded mustard, honey, balsamic vinegar and EVOO.

This is the finished product, pretty awesome looking

I made it in advance so by the time we ate it, the feta had been stained pink by the beetroot, but considering it was a BBQ with seven little girls (and one lonely lad) it seemed only fitting.

Not that any of the kids would deign to eat it though. OMG ‘Nuts!’ run screaming for the hills, girls.

My thoughts

After three successes with salads, I am considering changing my opinion to ‘you can make friends with salad’.

As long as there isn’t too much of that leafy stuff.