Hot and sour turkey meatball soup

It's been a while between drinks. I've been busy with a stock of distractions, including a big move to Sydney to live with the lovely Tobino. You may remember him from a previous blog about Nigella Lawson's sausage chicken of the future.

http://povalicious.blogspot.com/2008/08/sausage-chicken-at-tobinos.html

We're in an Annandale cottage with garden care of an exhaustive seven week rental ad slog. The place has shaped up into a cosy home, with lots of mates nearby and food adventures by the minute. The only major flaw is that planes seem to use us as a landing strip, but otherwise, divine.

Our Lupercalia lily, bought on St Valentines during the house hunt, a Chateau Tobeleash mascot:

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Tobes and I have been mucking about with fusion food lately; Welsh rarebit lasagne and Persian spice cake being our crowning achievements to date (recipes to follow).

This is my Thai/Italian contribution, which fits into the Povalicious genre, because it is genuinely thrifty and pretty straightforward once you relax and just cook it. Italian meatballs cooked in a Thai way meet Thai soup with Italian herbs. It's a mish mash of the two cooking styles on a couple of levels, with a bit of Vietnamese influence thrown in. A bit like me; it doesn't really belong anywhere except wherever it is at the time.

Wank wank, anyway, I rustled it up one night when I was half out of my mind on Codral tablets and deadlines and needed a soothing, healing, invigorating, revitalising something something. I also had the following cheap turkey mince handy, care of Woolworths or Coles or one of the many purveyors of cheap turkey meat.

Soup:

3 tbsp tom yum paste

2 tbsp tomato sauce

1 tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 small onion, sliced as thinly as you can

2 carrots, sliced thinly

1 litre stock

2 tbsp plain yoghurt

Small handful vietnamese mint*

Small handful basil*

Small handful parsley*

Meatballs:

500g turkey mince

Small handful oregano, finely chopped

Small handful parsley, finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 tsp salt and pepper

1 egg

4 slices bread, broken into tiny little bits. The process of doing this is relaxing. If the crust is hard, cut it off first. Don't chuck it though - eat it. Toast it and slather it with butter or something. It'll make your hair curly or straighter or blonder or 23% stronger according to a laboratory.

Lots of vegetable oil, to fill a deep frypan about 2 inches high

Slap all the turkey ingredients together (bad Freudian slip), roll them into tablespoon sized balls and put them out on a tray or similar flat surface so they don't glue together. Heat a deep frypan and add vegetable oil 2 inches high. Put on medium heat; if you test it with a bread cube it should stay in the middle of the oil, sizzling nicely. If it is too low, it will sink to the bottom, if it is too high, it will start to burn.

Add all the soup ingredients except the yoghurt and fresh herbs to a big heavy bottomed pot. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer while you fry the meatballs.

Get a plate ready, covered in 2 or 3 layers of paper towel. Add meatballs to hot oil in batches of 6 or so, swirling with a slotted spoon, cook for 2-3 minutes or until just nicely browned, then remove and drain on paper.

Ladle hot soup into bowls, split the meatballs between them, then top with the herbs and a generous dollop of yoghurt, a twist of pepper, and maybe a drizzle of fish sauce. Serves 2 as a generous dinner type thing, or 4 as a starter (but who would go to this much trouble for a starter?!).

*I used these herbs because that was what was looking bushy in my backyard garden. Any combination of the following will also do nicely:

- 2 fresh curry leaves (add at the start of the soup)

- 2 fresh kaffir lime leaves (add at the start of the soup)

- Half a bunch of coriander, chopped

- Half a bunch of basil, leaves torn off by hand

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Pizza

Tonight has promised a rare relaxing evening at home for Povalicia. Picture me, wandering around the house singing along to Cyndi Lauper really loudly and badly, bathing in sea salt, lavender and sage fresh from my garden, dosing my skin up with shea butter and patting purry appreciative cats while I fuck around on the internets and watch telly. Lovely.

Still, I am somewhat listless and incompletely satisfied. I spend most of my days happy, full of whimsy and delight, but nothing sates me fully. Not even the excellent watermelon and tomato juice I downed today, or the beef samosa, or the two delicious plums, or the surprisingly perfect service station double cheese, steak and bacon pie, or even the gluten free hazelnut cookie to end all cookies of all time. Not even discovering the world's natural cosmetics mecca in an MGM grand style palace in downtown Marrickville. Not even a fabulous day of random adventures and laffs with my dear friend Tobin, bless.

Before I start getting too far into my Mick Jagger or Peggy Lee impersonations, I've decided to try posting another episode of my food blog. The therapeutic value of the catharsis of literary release is often touted, so let's give it a go.

I've also decided to make myself a pizza. Killing two birds with one stone, I'm now blogging about it, but I'm using pics and a recipe from some old pizza I made months ago. Partly because I can't be bothered taking any pics, and partly because I've got bags under my eyes from here to next Tuesday.

Pizza is very simple and magical. Especially when you're feeling a little empty and needing some fill. It's also cheap as, which makes it most eligible for povalicious status.

Now, I won't waste your time, because I don't, so I'll start off with the simplest version, which I make with lebanese bread, fresh from my freezer.* But if you'd fancy a try at doing it from scratch, which isn't that much harder, and is quite relaxing and gratifying once you've pulled it off like a champion, see my end notes.**

2 lebanese breads

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

8 slices pancetta

1 bunch parsley

1 cup grated mozzarella

1 cup grated tasty cheese

1/2 cup grated parmesan

50g gorgonzola or blue castello cheese

2 potatoes, sliced as thinly as you possibly can

Olive oil, salt, pepper

Preheat your oven as hot as it will go. The hotter the better - pizza needs to cook fast. If you have a pizza oven which will go to 400 degrees plus, all the better (except that in all of my jealousy I will come to your house and steal your oven).

Lay the lebanese breads out onto a tray, sprinkle with olive oil, garlic and little daubs of blue cheese. Top with sliced potato, pancetta slices, cheese, then finely chopped parsley. Add a sprinkle of salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

Cook for 20 minutes or so until golden brown and the potato is soft.

Eat with relish and abandon. Feel better. Go and have a bath.

Other scrumptious topping suggestions:

(Please follow the K.I.S.S. rule and don't ever put pineapple or barbecue sauce on a pizza unless you want me to slap you)

#1 - 2 very ripe tomatoes, chopped, mixed with 1 tub of tomato paste, 2 tbsp olive oil and a handful of fresh oregano. Top with cheese and maybe more oregano. Cook.

#2 - As for #1, but before you put the cheese on, add some peeled green prawns, squid rings, raw shucked mussels and pieces of white fish.

#3 - Olive oil on base, then finely sliced potato, then cheese. Cook, then top with fresh parsley. This also works well without the cheese, with a light drizzle of olive oil and sprinkling of salt instead.

#4 - Olive oil on base, then roasted pumpkin, roasted garlic, cubed fetta, kalamata olives, then cheese. Cook, then top with lots of torn basil.

#5 - My all time favourite, the god of all pizzas and inspiration for this recipe:

Olive oil, garlic, oregano and gorgonzola cheese on base, then pancetta, then cheese, then more oregano. Cook in hot oven. Top with really fresh ripe figs that have been sliced and soaked in some delicious vinegar, and lots of rocket. You will die and go to heaven. But then you'll come back again, with a smile on your face, slightly bow legged. Yum!

Hot tips

* I use lebanese bread for pizzas because someone told me to once and all of the pre-made pizza bases that I have tried have been shit. And they are expensive. Forget them. The only exception to this rule I can think of is a really thin pane di casa one I found once, and honestly, lebanese bread is cheaper and better. If you freeze them you can always make pizza quickly whenever you're feeling forlorn or simply ravenous, or both, as they defrost in about 5 minutes in the oven. You can almost always get it cheap from your greengrocer.

** To make a pizza base from scratch:

Make a bread dough, leave it to prove, spread it out on a tray, add toppings, cook in a hot oven. That's it.

Jamie will tell you how it's done, he knows much more about this than I do. http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-and-pizza/pizza-dough

Or, if I have no yeast or time, I make a scone-like dough. Basically, for 1 pizza, get 1 cup of flour, 2 tbsp of butter and crumb them together with your fingers until combined. Add just enough milk to bring it together as a firm dough, then knead it quickly on a pile of flour until smooth (not too long). Spread it really thinly on your tray, covered with alfoil (otherwise this base sticks to the tray like a mf). Cook it in your hot oven for about 5 minutes, then take it out and let it cool before you add your toppings.

*** Pizza may make you fat. This is not so bad. My only other disclaimer about this whole recipe is, as you can plainly see, pizza can make you angry. Don't be angry. Be careful, people. Look after each other.

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Turkey and pineapple red curry

Weeks of packing, moving house, unpacking, cleaning, working overtime and otherwise engaging in non-blog pastimes have kept me away from you. But I'm back, with a red curry, broadcast from my new 50s cottage sunroom, looking onto my big leafy backyard. Watch this space, it's due to feature heavily in future episodes.



Thai food delivers maximum flavour at minimum cost - zesty, fresh, intense, with a counter-balanced richness and good range of textures. I am very fond of it to say the least - I love its pants off.

Cooking really good, cheap Thai food is dependent on a few main variables. The first is your provedore - you need a good Thai or Vietnamese grocer nearby (or at a pinch Chinese) Thainatown, aka Campbell St in Haymarket, Sydney is my favourite shopping hub. Pontip at 78a Campbell is the original and the best. You've always got the best fresh seasonal herbs, which don't cost you $2+ a bunch. You can easily walk away with a week's worth of greens for under $10. Not to mention the fruit and vegetables, fresh tamarind and green peppercorns, green paw paw, I could go on forever.

The other thing Thai really hangs on is the quality of your recipes. Because it involves the delicate balance of huge flavour contrasts it is easy to screw up on proportions of ingredients, so it's a bit like baking - best to be precise. My favourites tend to come from Martin Boetz's Longrain cookbook. This one is an exception, largely due to it's simplicity. It sprung out of a good brand of tinned red curry paste I had in the pantry, some cheap turkey chops I came across at Woolies and the memory of a dish I once ate at Spice I Am - my other favourite Thai hub in Surry Hills, Sydney.



400g or so turkey chops (Cheap from Woolworths, otherwise use chicken thigh fillets)
1 large onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 bulb fennel or 4 sticks celery, thinly sliced
1 cup green beans, topped and tailed and cut in half
1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped
1 small tin red curry paste
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 cup fresh or 1 drained tin unsweetened chopped pineapple
300mL can coconut cream (Go for Ayam brand, many other brands aren't real coconut cream - but the pulverised coconut that's left over after the cream has been extracted. This is tasteless crap. You'll know it's decent if you open the tin and it sticks to the lid.)
Olive oil, salt, pepper, chilli to taste

Rub turkey chops in 1/2 tsp salt, a few good cracks of pepper and a dribble of olive oil.
Heat a griddle pan, heavy based cast iron saucepan, grill, or whatever approximation of this you have as hot as it will possibly go. Add turkey, cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side until nicely browned but not burnt. Leave on a plate topped with paper towels, covered in alfoil.

Fry onion and garlic in about 2 tbsp olive oil on medium heat for around 2 minutes. Add fennel, stir for another 2 minutes, then add red curry paste. Fry for another 2 minutes or until nicely aromatic, then add coconut cream, beans and fish sauce. Reduce to a simmer, cook for about 10 minutes or until the beans are just soft, but still bright green.



Slice turkey into strips and add to the curry along with the pineapple. Cook on medium heat for another minute. This is where I'd taste it to see if you need more chilli. Adding it earlier on is just asking for trouble with red curry - as the heat develops as it cooks. Add some more fish sauce if it needs it too.

Once it's spicy and salty enough for your liking, serve it on rice, topped with the coriander. Soft steamed brown rice is what I'd go for - the curry's a bit rich, you want something clean tasting. Otherwise, any other kind of steamed rice would be fine.



Serves 4 and freezes well, minus the coriander

You can make great rice in little $10 ceramic rice cookers you can get from Chinatown, or any good chinese grocer. Mine looks like this.



When steaming brown rice, I swear by par-boiling it first. I add 2 cups of rice to my steamer, add 5 cups of water, then boil it for about 5 minutes. Then I drain off the water, add 3 cups of water to my steamer, bring it to the boil, stirring, then simmer it with the lid on until all of the water is absorbed.

If you're steaming white rice, skip the pre-boil stage, wash your rice a few times first to get rid of the extra starch, mix in about 2 tsp olive oil, then add 1 1/2 cups of water for every cup of rice. Bring to the boil, stirring, then leave it alone with the lid on at a simmer, for about 10 minutes or until cooked.


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Sausage chicken at Tobino's

Finger-suckingly good Nigella Lawson-inspired food makes up much of my cooking reportoire. My comrade Toby is also a staunch fan. I spent a night last week at his place up in Glebe, hanging out, cooking and engaging in some Nigella worship.



Toby made one of her pov-a-licious one pot wonders - cheap, simple and utterly delicious sausage chicken.

1 kg chicken pieces - drumsticks, wings, marylands, or a whole chicken cut into pieces
500g sausages
1 lemon, cut into wedges
2 onions, cut into wedges
1 tbsp english mustard
1 tbsp dried sage or thyme
1 tbsp olive oil
salt, pepper
1 big zip lock plastic bag (2L volume)

Combine all ingredients in the zip lock bag with 1/2 tsp salt and a good crack of pepper. Seal it up all hermetically-like.





Massage for about a minute or so, noting the pleasant sensation, lack of mess and hassle. It feels like the future. Pop it in the fridge for at least an hour, maybe overnight.

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees celsius (445 degrees fahrenheit). Spread out in a roasting dish and bake for an hour or so until golden and delicious.





Serves 4, freezes well

Toby whipped up some pumpkin and potato mash, and simmered some shredded lettuce with frozen peas in butter and stock which made for great sides. Any mash or steamed veg would be fine.



Our friend Helen came round, we dug into a great winter feast, care of the old dart and it's saucy foodsmith, and horsed around watching crazy YouTube vids til 2am.



Another major up-side of my stay at Tobes' was the leisurely 20 minute trip into work in the morning - which usually takes me 1 1/2 hours from my south coast home. I love it down here, but I did come away with serious Glebe envy.

Check out Nigella's original recipe at:
http://www.nigella.com/recipes/recipe.asp?article=364

For an excellent YouTube montage of cheesecake pictures, perfect for 2am viewing, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpoBcRqCuSI


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Cumin pepper steak, butter bean, fetta and tomato salad

Cumin, pepper and salt are made to be together*. Add a bit of beef and you've got a delectable foursome. I'm leaving myself open to dodgy food innuendo, but it really is a winning flavour combination.

Steak can be thrifty if you buy in bulk, choose cheaper cuts, freeze what you don't need and add just a little to each meal. Think of it as a flavoursome accompaniment, not the main event. Your digestive tract and wallet will thank you.

This salad relies on fresh, ripe ingredients. Green leaves should be used soon after they are picked and stored in a plastic bag in a crisper if possible. Tomatoes should be deep red, but not soggy. Never store them in a fridge - which causes them to harden and become grainy as the cells produce their own natural anti-freeze. Leave them on a window sill in the sun if you buy them a little pale - this will encourage softening and help the flavour to develop. If they get a over-ripe, cut off any bad bits and they'll be perfect for cooking into pasta sauce.



The combination of meat, fetta, pulses and vegetables in this salad makes for a satisfying, inexpensive meal - and nutritious to boot.

150g cheap steak
(sirloin, rump, round, t-bone or porterhouse - whatever you can get for under $10 a kilo without too much collagen - white, rubbery hard threads through the meat - not to be confused with fat which is fantastic for frying)
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp peppercorns
200g or 1/2 tin butter beans
(the other half will freeze well until you use it)**
100g danish fetta, cut into small cubes
2 ripe tomatoes, cut into even chunks
1 small onion, sliced thinly
100g baby rocket or mixed salad leaves
small handful mint leaves, optional
(only bother if you've got it in your garden)
olive oil, cider vinegar, salt

Coat steak in a liberal amount of salt. Pile it on, rub it in and leave it for an hour or so in the fridge. Meanwhile, toast peppercorns and cumin in a small frypan on medium for a few minutes, or until the cumin starts to pop a bit (but take off heat before it burns). Crush in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder. It doesn't have to be homogenous, cumin is hard to pound completely into dust, this is fine.

Rinse steak with warm water, pat dry with paper towels, and rub in spice mix and 1 tbsp olive oil. Heat a griddle pan (cast iron is best), barbecue grill or your George Foreman special to the highest setting. Fry meat for 1-3 minutes each side, depending on how cooked you like it. Remove and cover with foil.

Mix 1 tbsp olive oil with 2 tsp cider vinegar and meat juices from the griddle pan in a bowl. Add onion, butter beans, fetta, tomatoes, salad greens and mint (if using) and toss to combine. Split between 2 plates.

Slice beef into thick slices, add on top of salad. Voila, done.



Serves 2, best eaten immediately.

*Adding 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 cup almonds or pistachio nuts to spice mix before toasting and grinding gives you dukkah. This is a middle eastern/north african condiment which makes a delicious crust coating for meat and fish and an excellent companion to bread and olive oil as a snack. The addition of a teaspoon each of other spice seeds, like fennel and coriander also works well.

**Tinned beans are cheap and simple additions to a meal. Dried pulses, however, are the ultimate in food economy. Take half a cup of dried butter beans, chickpeas, what have you, soak them overnight, then simmer them for 15 minutes in some stock or water. Drain, mix with a little olive oil, salt, pepper you've paid maybe 30 cents for a filling addition to so many tasty dishes.

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Mushroom, bacon and smoked oyster pappardelle

Cheap oyster pasta? Piffle you say? Oysters are actually relative newcomers in the luxury food realm. These filter-feeding creatures were once a food staple for the poor in coastal areas. The Louisiana Creole Po'boy sandwich - lemon-squeezed deep-fried oysters in a buttered french baguette is a great example of this tradition.

They are best eaten raw and soon after harvest - sunk straight down the gullet with a good dribble of oystery juices. Unfortunately, thanks to the gourmet reinvention of this mollusc, strugglers have been priced out of eating fresh oysters on the half shell. Canned, smoked oysters, however, are still cheap and gorgeous. Texturally, they leave a little to be desired when straight out of the can. Rinsed of their tin liquid (which isn't a taste sensation) and blended with some pepper, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic or onion they make an excellent spread on toasted bread. They are also delicious when slowly simmered into sauces, such as the one in this pasta recipe.



500g packet pappardelle
(Aldi has some excellent cheap egg pasta, otherwise any pappardelle or fettucine will do)
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tins smoked oysters, rinsed
2 rashers bacon, cut into strips
300g mushrooms, sliced
1/2 bulb fennel or 4 stalks celery, finely sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine
(I keep a decent cask, like De Bortoli Verdelho in the fridge for these kinds of things. It keeps longer than a bottle and cheap cheap cheap!)
300mL cream
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/4 bunch parsley, chopped
olive oil, pepper

Fry onion and garlic on medium heat in a little olive oil for 5-10 minutes until translucent and golden. Add bacon and fry for another 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, stir for another 5, then the fennel and ditto. Add wine and reduce. Add cream, then oysters and reduce to a simmer for 10 or so minutes. Keep it simmering away while you cook the pasta.



Bring 2 litres of water to a rolling boil, add pappardelle and cook until al dente (soft but slightly firm to the bite). Drain, but don't rinse (the starchy residue on pasta helps the sauce stick tight).
Mix with sauce. Serve with a good crack of pepper and topped with a handful of parsley.

Feeds 6 and freezes well.



Note: If you happen to be handy to an oyster farm, you can often get great deals on fresh oysters, either in the shell or in a jar. Going this route, don't add the oysters to the sauce until about a minute before you finish simmering - they're better under-done.


Sexy oyster image 1 comes from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Open_Oyster_Lyon_market.JPG under the creative commons cc-by-sa 2.5 license.


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