Baked chocolate pudding

Sudden desire for a pudding one night lead to the exhuming of an old favourite. The sort of thing we learn to make when we first go flatting, really, ‘cos it’s so easy & the ingredients are always in the pantry. And just the thing on which to use up the left-over whipped cream in the fridge! I think you could make it more interesting than this recipe by adding, I don’t know, dried cranberries or chopped glacé cherries to the mix. And sometimes I double the amount of cocoa in the mix (not the sauce), to give it a stronger, darker appeal. Anyway, it goes down a treat.

          So, sift 1 cup self-raising flour & 2 tspn cocoa into a bowl. Add ¾ cup sugar. Melt 2 tbspn of butter and stir in, then add ½ cup of milk. Pour into a pie dish.

          For the sauce combine ½ cup brown sugar & 2 tspn cocoa. Sprinkle this on top of the mix and then gently pour over 1 ¼ cups boiling water. Put in a moderate oven and bake for around 45 minutes.

Mid-week dining

More entertaining. Mid-week, so it has to be straightforward. And a cauliflower from the Sunday market determined the first course, soup, a Martin Bosley recipe I think, made the night before. An unusual soup, but I like the way the smoked salmon works with the cauliflower … I’d allow about 50 gms of smoked salmon for four servings.

So in a large pot put 1 head of cauliflower, trimmed of greenery, and sliced roughly; a small chopped onion, 500 ml milk, 250 ml chicken stock, and a bay leaf. Simmer for 30 minutes, then remove from heat and blend in a food processor until smooth. Strain through a fine sieve … this gives it a velvety consistency. Season, and serve, garnished with smoked salmon pieces and a delicate sprinkling of chopped parsley. Looks good, the colour of the soup intrigues, and the taste (pleasantly) surprises.

We followed this with Mediterranean chicken, and ended the meal with fruit … sliced, peeled oranges drizzled with Cointreau, chilled, served with whipped cream. Refreshingly simple, simply refreshing. I was pleased with my inventiveness.

The inelegance of beef stew

I was a bit disappointed with dinner the night the foodies came to dine. Perhaps I put too much trust in the Silver Palate gals? Began with their minted sweet pea & spinach soup again, that was fine, and had plucked a menu idea from the book. 

Beef stew with cumin

Parsleyed rice

Orange & onion salad

(I suppose, incidentally, I really ought to resist the temptation to cook new dishes when friends come to dinner … that would manage the stress levels a bit!). The rice was simple, and worked well; the salad unusual, but very successful … the juicy explosion of orange I really liked with the stew. But the stew! Comfort food really, didn’t sit well between the soup & the crème brulée, and far spicier than I’d imagined. But, OMG … I’m just looking at the recipe now and I’m thinking, aaarrgh! No wonder it didn’t work well, overpowered the excellent Australian shiraz someone had provided … the recipe says a TEASPOON of chilli powder … I threw in a generous TABLESPOON!!! Wondered at the time, especially with the experience of the khao soi fresh in my mind, but, you know, never made before, trust the recipe … perhaps I should trust myself?! And perhaps, after all, my disappointment was less to do with the elegance (or otherwise) of the stew and more with the heavy handedness of the short-sighted cook. Give the dish another outing perhaps? But, blast, I had wanted to impress that night.

Performance anxiety

When foodie friends come to dinner, it’s stressful. For instance … very foolishly I had, about a year ago, boasted of my crème brulée to a friend whose wife is a superb cook and now they were coming to dinner … here at last was my chance to perform. So, made it the night beforehand, but wasn’t happy. It seemed to take a very long time in the oven to set, and I just knew it was overcooked. So the next morning decided I’d try again – though quite what I’m going to do with 16 egg whites, I don’t know! But first, I also knew, I needed a brulée torch. Had a very organised car trip planned … could hit three shops in reasonably close vicinity & be home within the hour. Hah! Previously I’d used a gas torch from the garage for brulée -ing … but did the first, or the second hardware store have any in stock? Of course not. Eventually, at the other end of the city, found several different types, some of industrial bulk & clearly not suitable. So I dithered. And eventually ended up at Moore Wilson’s, where they had explicitly labeled brulée torches. Double the price of the hardware store, but at least I knew it was designed for the purpose. Hmm. Adequate at best, I discovered that evening. Anyway, home to make a second dish of custard for the brulée … even this, I thought, a little over-cooked and a tad too sweet … probably shouldn’t have replaced the sugar with caster sugar. Maybe I just need more practice? Have made this recipe before (it’s from Richard Till) and it’s been splendid. Greatly impressed another foodie friend! But am a bit OD’d on crème brulée for now. Won’t be making it again any time soon.

3 cups cream

8 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla essence

Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 130 C. Put all ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Pour into an ovenproof dish and set in a roasting pan. Add hot water to pan so it comes halfway up side of brulée dish. Bake for 1 ½ hours or till set. It’s set when the centre wobbles slightly when the dish is lightly shaken.

Cool and refrigerate overnight. Just before serving, dust with about 6 tbsp caster sugar & brulée with torch.

Too trusting

One little achievement during my flying visit to Bangkok was to buy a Thai cook book. Quite a selection available, and in the end choose one written by a farang, not the cheapest but it seemed to explain how to do things, things that someone like me would need explained. All well and good. Home, I decided to make khao soi, long a favourite. However, and despite the recipe’s accompanying photo, I quickly realized that it probably wasn’t the khao soi I particularly like. And did the recipe really call for 2 tablespoons of chilli powder? Trust the recipe, I thought. Hah! The soup-y dish blew your socks off! So might just shelve and forget about this book.

Sticky rice with mango

Free from the conference and a couple of days at leisure in Bangkok, time for eating & shopping. At the Mah Boon Krong food hall made sure that I left space for a serving of that simple but delicious dessert, mango with sticky rice. It’s the contrast between the sticky, tangy rice with just a hint of salt in the accompanying coconut milk, and the juicy, yellow, non-fibrous Thai mango that works so well.

On conference lunches

Food at conferences can be one of the talking points among delegates, and the target on unfavourable comments on evaluation forms. But no complaints here. Am impressed that at lunch each day we don’t do the buffet shuffle, but sit at round tables. And are served 6 or 8 very good Thai dishes. Some familiar, some not. Always a soup at the centre of the ‘lazy Susan’ – tom yung khung (the spicy prawn soup) the first day, tom kha gai (coconut chicken) the next, and something different, the name of which I’ve forgotten, today. And after the main dishes have been cleared it’s time for polimai and kanom – fruit & sweetmeats. Though today the little cakes were replaced by that extraordinary dish of egg custard baked inside a pumpkin. Yummy.

Hotel breakfasts

It amazes me that, when I go down to the hotel dining room at 6.30 in the morning, it’s so full of people. People who are clearly not insomniacs, people who appear to be bright-eyed & bushy-tailed after a good night’s sleep. Not people like me who have been awake since 5, or even 3, and are feeling grumpy about being jet-lagged. However, let me say, this hotel (the Imperial Queen’s Park) does breakfast – &, indeed, service – very well. And with over 1000 rooms (I’m sure I read on their promo material), while it’s not really my sort of hotel, I don’t suppose they’d survive long without excellent management in place. And at breakfast they triumph. Thank goodness, because when jet-lagged & grumpy one doesn’t want to be crossed first thing in the morning! When I’m in a hotel I don’t require all the trappings of a cooked breakfast but I do like certain basics to be right: (a) a pot of tea rather than a cup from a passing Kona, (b) juice that isn’t cordial, and (c) good croissants. Big ticks on each of those scores.  Also, a great selection of almost-home-made-looking jams … damson plum, red currant, strawberry, and others … attractively presented in glass jars.   And other interesting things that I didn’t sample … pale green pandanus jam to go with the French toast, for example. My sole complaint – Australian rather than NZ butter … which everyone knows is superior!

Around the hotel

Different neighbourhoods have their different feels. Last night I wandered out from the hotel to find somewhere to eat, somewhere with a local feel to it, maybe a shop house restaurant open to the street. But quickly discovered that Sukhumvit soi 22 is not really that sort of street. Lots of young women sitting in groups, calling out ‘massage, massage’. Determinedly walked on, avoiding eye contact! Bars, too, which would no doubt come alive later in the night. It wasn’t just bars & massage parlours, of course, but enough of them to make this solo European male feel uncomfortable. But anyway, there were a few restaurants and I chose one that didn’t look too touristy. And, being essentially a creature of habit, chose the red duck curry. A bit light on the duck, but a good curry sauce, with a sweet edge.

Air travel eating

I’ve been hanging out for yesterday’s flight to Bangkok. The last two or three weeks have been demanding … a family funeral, car written off in an accident, father in hospital, and then, over the past couple of days, parents moving out of the family home after 45 years. That was stressful, as house moves inevitably are. So, the thought of getting on a plane and being out of touch for 12 hours or so was bliss … a chance just to switch off really. And it also provided a stream of opportunities to browse, from a long black & sultana scone in the Koru Club at Wellington Airport (where the catering is reliably good) to bananas and lum yai in the fruit bowl in the hotel room on arrival. But mainly, of course, it was about eating on the plane. I’m not sure that the menu was that different from when I last flew up here, six months ago, but that’s okay. Liked the vanilla-infused confit of chicken served with kawakawa potato gnocchi & kawakawa cream on the first meal service, and always happy to be given a pottle of Kapiti’s black Doris plum ice cream to eat, which ended that meal. Some hours and another movie later, the slices of seared sugar cured tuna served atop a pawpaw salad (with a nice red onion bite; airline food can be bland) pleased me, and the hint of chilli in the pineapple fried rice seemed to mark the transition from Kiwi to Thai food. I’m looking forward to the real thing.