Fish en Papillote - Baked Salmon parcels

My cooking tends to go in cycles. I get a dish or two and will cook it or a variation of it for weeks. And then I'd get inspired to something else, and that becomes my go-to meal. My current go-to is baked fish (namely Salmon, because I don't love other fish like I love salmon). 

I started with a recipe from Nom Nom Paleo called Fish en Papillote. It's been the perfect meal-for-one after I finally get home from work/gym/class. I don't follow the recipe that closely, just turn my oven on to about 220C and bake for about 10 mins.

My crazy schedule makes it too easy to fall into lazy, unhealthy meals or expensive eating out. This eases some of that - not that salmon is really 'cheap'.

Baked Kale Chips and Mussels Makes a Lazy Lunch

My recent food obsession includes baked kale chips. I adore it and it's so easy too! And the guinea piggies love it too and even deign to eat the stems up too! Win-win for all!

I started with Nom Nom Paleo's recipe and have adjusted it to suit me.

The steps are:

1. Preheat oven to about 150C
2. wash kale, dry and tear into pieces
3. Toss in oil (I have been using olive oil)
4. Place on baking tray
5. Bake in oven for about 10 mins - watch it closely so it does not burn
6. Take out and season as desired (I usually crack some salt and a touch of MSG)

NB: I had to dial down both the temp and time from the recipe. It probably depends on your oven, play around.

And to make it a complete meal, I also made Mussels with green curry sauce. 

The steps are:

1. Heater water in a steamer
2. Chuck in mussels steaming section
3. In saucepan heat green curry paste
4. Add coconut milk and fish sauce and extra chilli if you want an extra kick
5. By this time, mussels shells should have popped opened
6. Serve mussels with green curry soup poured above

Wug in the Kitchen time - Diary free pesto and pesto baked chicken

Basil was found at a good price, so we bought enough for both me and the guinea pigs. And what does one do with they are overrun with basil? PESTO!

I went with a diary free option (my trainer would be proud). All I did was chuck in basil, olive oil, lemon juice, pine nuts and some salt and pepper. Blended in the food processor to taste.

As for the chicken, add a more olive oil, smear pesto and add lemon. These were chicken chops, so relatively small pieces, so only needed to bake for about 20 mins! So easy, healthy and delicious! 

The Perfect Soft-Boiled Egg

One of my ongoing breakfast quest is the perfect soft-boiled egg. I prefer my whites to be just cooked and my yolk to be running. This calls for precision timing. I generally use my eggo, but alas the need to measure water precisely means that I often end up with overcooked eggs when I get it wrong.

I'm currently on one based on Heston's soft-boiled eggs. But I've changed it so much it's probably not really that anymore. What I did in the following is cover eggs with water, put over my medium stove, low heat, turn off when the water boils, leave for a minute and then spoon out.

Using Heston's faithfully, I get the following from my stove.

The hardest part is patiently waiting for the water to boil and then turning it off straight away. I am not known for my patience, but I occupied my time with some push-ups, etc. As you can see, it's NOT soft-boiled. I may have let it sit a bit longer than the 6 minutes, but I think that's not the main problem. Maybe my stove didn't boil the water quickly enough?

I've had a few instances of undercooking the yolk, but I seem to be swinging too far the other way.

As you can see, it's an ongoing experiment. So far, the winning methods appears to be slowly bringing to boil and turn off and take out immediately.

Cantonese-Style Carrot, Corn, Watercress and Pork Bones Broth Soup

For those of you have chinese friends, you may have encountered this staple. It's also one of my favourite chinese dishes (can soups be described as a dish?). It is so easy to make, the hardest part is waiting for it to become rich with favour! I like buying my bones and watercress from the monthly Farmer's Market, so it's nice and fresh!

Step 1: Pre-cook the bones so that the icky red bits can be cooked and rinsed off. My Mum likes to look it all the way through. We don't want floaters messing up our clear broth. I am not as fussed.

Step 2: Wash veggies, taking extra care with any dirt still attached to the watercress. Cut up carrot (peel if you like, it depends on how lazy I am feeling) and corn cob into smaller pieces.

Step 3: Put everything in pot. You may want to start with the bones and carrots first, and then add the corn and watercress. Don't add the watercress until the water is boiled (that's what my Mum tells me!)

Step 4: Once boiled, turn heat to low and let it simmer away for at least 4 hours! This is the hardest part, but the longer it simmers, the richer the favours are!

How I like to cook fried shanghai dumplings

So my mum came up the other week with two bags full of shanghai dumplings, made by a yum cha chef. So what's a girl to do but eat dumplings? The dumpling comes raw, so the question is how to best cook the dumplings so they're nice and crispy on the outside, and cooked through on the inside?

The follow is my method of making delicious fried dumplings at home! 

So get your dumplings out, bring a pot to boil, put your dumplings in and cook. 

Some lovely frozen dumplings

I forgot to take a photo of the dumplings in the pot... but cook dumplings until they float to the top, that's a good indication that they're cook through. 

Getting fried

Heat a pan, add some oil in. Once it's nice and hot (but not smoking!), and place your dumplings in (because of any water bouncing off against the heat and oil). Turn over a few times to ensure all sides crisp. Sometimes I add extra oil to ensure it fries nice and crispy.  

Serve up nice and hot!

Serve up on plate of choice, add sauces as desired. I sprinkled some vinegar and chilli oil. DELICIOUS!

Slowing down for winter

So after an incredibly exciting, stressful, long and hard semester I am finally slowing today. I've been spending quality time with my best friend and her baby, started a new, non-legal book and a knitting project. I'm evening venturing into preparing real food again. Tonight I am using a recipe from the above mentioned best friend to make my own pizza base.

A delightfully simple mixture of flour, yeast, bread improver salt, sugar and water, it's current resting in the kitchen. Can't wait to to get to the next step of rolling out and (the best part) putting my toppings on!

I accidentally splashed out on Buffalo Mozarella, when I asked for two from a South Melbourne market deli from a display with no price tags and without asking for a price. They better be tasty!

Found: Organic Chicken Wings

It's always been a puzzle to me, why when I go to the supermarkets chicken section, why there's be whole organic chicken, organic chicken breast and organic chicken thighs, but no wings. What happens to all the wings that goes with those other bits?

At Woolworth's, some, at least, do occasionally get sold labeled as organic wings.




Now, the packet didn't come cheap, but I had to try them. That one packet was less than half a kilo, 4 whole wings. That's not a lot of wings. So I decided to eat them at whole and complete as possible. I want to taste as much of the natural flavour as possible.

Marinade with some macadamia nut oil, dried mixed herbs, pepper, salt and basil. Grill each side till done. Results below.


I added a touch of Tabasco sauce when serving for extra kick. Delicious!