I had been given some double passes to see Home Song Stories by the kind people at Dendy films and it seems only fitting that we partake of some suburban Chinese Australian cuisine to help get us in the mood. My husband and I (and his family) love Dendy films as they’re not the usual cliched Hollywood blockbuster, plus they serve the best choc tops with real waffle cones, good quality chocolate and flavours like Cherry Ripe and Boysenberry. Once you’ve had one you’ll be hooked!

At about $11.20 per person, Chong Hing must be one of the best value restaurants in Sydney. If you look at their regular menu the prices are similar to any suburban Chinese restaurant. However a glance at their walls shows their set menus for 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 people. What is also surprising is that there are a few seafood dishes offered in this set menu. Tonight we have 4 omnivores and 1 herbivore so we opt for the Menu A for 4 plus a vegetarian dish (warning for vegetarians, there aren’t many vegetarian dishes on the menu).

Menu 4A comprises of Deep fried king prawns in creamy sauce, Pork strips with stir fried mixed vegetables, Chicken with celery and honey and pepper pork ribs

Shortly after we order, the tea and house soup (clear vegetable and pork broth) arrives. Then with the rice arrives the first dish, pork strips with mixed vegetables-fabulously tender strips of tasty pork with shiitake mushrooms, boy choy and other veges perfectly cooked-definitely one of my favourites, especially the pork strips. They’re generous with the skiitake mushrooms, one of the costlier vegetables.

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For some reason I always feel that my fridge is not complete without a tub of sour cream in it. Problem is, I don’t cook things with sour cream very often except for cakes and the occasional lot of nachos and since I am a fridge nazi that doesn’t let anything go off, I find myself scrambling to make a batch of something, usually cake-like, that requires sour cream. I always try and bake with it as I know it produces a moist cake and today I had some bananas that looked like they needed eating.

It turns out these bananas actually didn’t need eating once I opened them up. Has anyone noticed that since the “banana crisis” in Australia subsided, bananas that look black on the outside turn out to be nowhere near super ripe as they look? They must be storing them differently or doing something different.

I found this recipe from the Taste site and it comes highly recommended. It was very nice but I think I’d change the icing to a cream cheese icing. Banana cake and cream cheese work so well together but I am biased as cream cheese icing is my favourite icing. I also added some cinammon which I also think goes so well with bananas. As I had just bought some new cookie cutter to use as fondant cutters for cupcakes, I made these as cupcakes instead of a large cake. I baked the larger cupcakes (in the swirl papers at the very bottom of the page) for 20 minutes and the smaller ones (in the white pleated cups) for 15 minutes.

The tops were made using my new cutters from Davis & Waddell bought in Myer where they have a ring of 12 shapes for $9 as they had a 30% off deal (usually $12.95 RRP). They’re pretty good value as I have seen cutters for a lot more per cutter.

Sour cream banana cake

Ingredients (serves 8 )

• 125g butter, softened
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1 cup mashed banana (you will need 2 large, very ripe bananas)
• 2 1/4 cups self-raising flour
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 2 teaspoons of cinammon

• Icing

• 180g white chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 cup sour cream

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each. Using a metal spoon, gently fold in sour cream and bananas. Sift flour and bicarbonate of soda over batter and gently fold through.
3. Spoon batter into cupcake pans. Smooth surface. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean. Stand for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
4. Make icing. Place chocolate and sour cream in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Heat, stirring constantly with a metal spoon, for 3 minutes or until smooth. Remove from heat. Stand for 10 minutes or until slightly thickened. Pour icing over cake, allowing it to drizzle down sides. Serve warm.

Notes & tips

Sour cream banana cake (without the icing) can be made a day in advance. Store at room temperature in an airtight container. To warm, place un-iced cake on a microwave-safe plate lined with baking paper. Heat, uncovered, on MEDIUM-LOWDEFROST (30%) for 4 to 6 minutes or until warm to the touch. Ice while warm.

Source

Super Food Ideas - May 2005 , Page 86

Recipe by Dixie Elliott

I was incredibly fearful that these would be hideous and not work as the “pastry” appeared to be a gooey mess that would be completely unworkable. Little did I know, that is what it is like! I followed Nigella Lawson’s recipe from How to be a Domestic Goddess for Processor Danish Pastry (which she assures us, is how Danish pastry is made in Denmark nowadays). She did mention the words “gooey mess” but I thought that after being refrigerated overnight that it would “toughen” up as her next instructions are to roll it. I tried rolling it with a rolling pin where chaos ensued and the sticky gooey dough completely stuck to the rolling pin. Luckily, the high butter content meant that I could just spread and shape it with my hands and I made some Chocolate ones (using Nutella) and some Custard ones as I didn’t have the almonds or ricotta cheese in her recipes. I’ll try those next, and this ended up being one of the biggest baking successes notwithstanding how badly I thought that I’d thought they’d turn out! They are freakishly light and melt in the mouth, much more so than the croissant-y ones that you tend to find a bakeries. My husband thought that I had somehow stumbled upon the Krispy Kreme secret of sweet melt in the mouthness. I’m just glad they didn’t turn out as badly as I thought they would lol

Oh and I ran out of icing sugar after my mega cupcake making incident so I didn’t get to put the lovely white stripes over them-sorry!

Food Processor Danish Pastry from How To Be a Domestic Goddess

(makes 2 lots of pastry with 6-8 pastries in each lot. You can freeze 1 lot or keep it in the fridge for up to 4 days)

• 60ml warm water
• 125ml milk, at room temperature
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 250g white bread flour
• 7g (1 sachet) dried yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 25g caster sugar
• 250g unsalted butter, cold, cut into chunks

Pour the water and milk into a measuring jug and add the egg, beating with a fork to mix. Put aside. Put flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a food processor and give a quick whizz, just to mix. Add the cold slices of butter and process briefly so that the butter is cut up a little, though you still want visible chunks of at least 1cm. Empty the contents of the food processor into a large bowl and quickly add the contents of the jug. Fold the ingredients together, but don’t overdo it; expect to have a gooey mess with some butter lumps pebbled through it (she’s absolutely serious, this is a gooey mess!) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, put in the fridge and leave overnight or a few days.

To turn it into pastry, take it out of the fridge, let it get to room temperature and roll it out to a 50×50cm square (I couldn’t roll mine at all). Fold the dough square into thirds, like a business letter, turning it afterwards so that the closed fold is on your left, like the spine of a book. Roll out again to a 50cm square, repeating the steps above 3 times. Cut in half, wrap both pieces and store in the fridge for 30 minutes before using, or the freezer to store.

Add fillings like vanilla custard, nutella, chocolate or fruit

From How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson