Don’t get me wrong, I love the restaurant Shanghai Night, but my husband loves it even more than me and possibly more than most of their customers. Every time I suggest going to a new restaurant, he always pipes up with “What about Shanghai Night?” with a plaintive puppy dog eyed look. He even asked to be taken here for his birthday in favour of other, more “special occasion” restaurants.
What is quite so loveable about this decor challenged, brightly lit busy shanghai eatery? The Dumplings of course! Luckily our friends Miss America & Queen Viv are also dumpling lovers. We are so enamoured of these little beasties that we order 4 different lots (that’s an official count of 44 dumplings in total!) plus other dishes.
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I admit to a minor unhealthy obsession with butterflies, they popped up on our wedding invitations and often pop up on my clothes (well the fabric print anyway). When I found a butterfly cutter in Plenty at Bondi Junction ($2.95) I grabbed it straight away. I had been looking on ebay US for some butterfly cutters but didn’t realise that Bondi Junction had what I needed.
These were from the green tea cupcakes that I made for my husband’s birthday. I simply added some green tea powder which I bought in Tokyo (this can be found in Japanese/Asian grocery stores here) to a regular vanilla buttercake recipe.
I made these for a group of friends from High School who are all now pregnant/with babies. To my horror, the morning of the afternoon tea, I googled green tea and saw that pregnant women aren’t supposed to have a lot of green tea. I brought them not wanting to arrive empty handed and the mums to be weren’t too worried as we did the calculations and figured that there was less green tea per cupcake than in a cup of green tea!
Green tea cupcakes with mascarpone frosting
Green tea Buttercake
- 90g butter softened
- 1/2 t vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup (150g) Self Raising flour
- 1/2 to 1 tablespoon green tea powder (depending on how strong you like it, taste)
- 2 tbs milk
1. Preheat oven to moderate 180degrees/160 fan forced. Line 6 hole texas or 12 hole standard muffin pan with paper cases
2. beat butter, extract, sugar, eggs, flour and milk in small bowl with electric mixer on low until ingredients are just combined. Increase speed to medium, beat until mixture has changed to a paler colour.
3. Divide mixture among cases, smooth surface
4. Bake large cakes about 25 minutes, small cakes about 20 minutes. Turn cakes onto wire rack to cool.
Mascarpone frosting
- 60g butter softened
- 160g mascarpone
- 3 cups (480g) icing sugar
Beat butter and mascarpone in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy, gradually beat in sifted icing sugar.
Decorate with fondant butterflies.
I have a riddle for you: what do you do if you have a crowd of vegans/vegetarians some of whom eat like a horse, you’re in the Eastern Suburbs/Inner City of Sydney, and they want to be fed for under $15?
Answer: Take them to Maya!
Everything on Maya Indian Sweets menu is vegetarian and a lot of it, except items with dairy, are vegan so vegetarians and vegans are really spoilt for choice here. Despite its name, Maya Sweets doesn’t just sell sweets, it also sells a range of hot dishes with dosais, thali, uttapams and tasting platters. Indeed my favourite item there and our first order for the night is the Thali “Punjabi” tasting plate, an enormous stainless steel rimmed plate with a selection of 4 curries, raita, pickles, rice, 2 roti breads and a dessert ($13.90). There are also two other Thali tasting plates to choose from. Tonight we’re in the mood for something different so its the mixed sizzler plate with a Til ka kebab, Paneer tikka, a samosa and a naan with mint yogurt ($12.90).
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One of the main things standing between me and vegetarianism or certain religions is Pork. You see I adore BBQ pork ribs, char siu and bacon. For that reason alone, I am unable to fully commit myself to being a vegetarian preferring the dabble in it 4 nights a week or so.
I make this once a month and while the marinating process is boring for the time challenged, it produces such a lovely taste at the end that I’ve never skipped or shortened it. I would never suggest making Char Siu sauce from scratch, mainly because the bottle stuff is so good, you really don’t want to mess with perfection. I use Pork Forequarter chops as they are juicy with a nice amount of fat on them but not too much. You could certainly use the extra trim pork fillets although it won’t be as juicy as the juice comes from the fattiness of the cut.
Char Siu Barbecued Pork
Ingredients:
- 1 kg of Pork Forequarter chops
- 4 tablespoons of Lee Kum Kee Char Siu sauce
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons white sugar
- 3-4 garlic cloves chopped
In a ziplock or plastic bag, add in all of the above ingredients except for the honey and smoosh around the bag so that the pork chops are coated with the ingredients (I sometimes find it easy just to layer one chop, cover it with the sauce & seasonings and then put another on top and sauce that and keep layering). Marinate overnight.
About an hour before you want to start cooking, take it out of the fridge to come to room temperature. Preheat oven to 180C degrees. Place pork on rack above a tray of hot water (I use a non stick cake cooling tray). The tray of water keeps the pork moist. Cook on one side for 15 mins and then turn over and cook other side for 15 mins.
Then, increase heat to 200c. Heat honey slightly in a bowl in the microwave so that it becomes more runny and using a silicon pastry brush and covering your hand with an oven glove, baste one side of the pork and cook for 5 minutes, then turn over baste other side with honey and cook for 5 minutes.
It should be sticky and sweet and very hot so using tongs and a very sharp knife, slice thinly watching for the bone.
Serve with steamed jasmine rice and steamed broccoli
On a Saturday afternoon there are few other places I’d rather be than browsing through a market near Manly beach. I’d previously been to Manly’s touristy Art and Craft market just off the Corso and was not particularly impressed by the goods on offer but when my mother in law told me that the real Manly Village Public School markets are much better and quite like Kirribilli its immediately put on the calendar. I asked her about the food but as someone who is rather disinterested in food, she can’t tell me much about the selection on offer.
Sprawled across Manly Public School’s grounds, the markets are deceptively large. It consists mostly of stalls with second hand goodies, some new items, children’s clothes, furniture and assorted bric a brac. The prices are incredibly cheap for the most part. In fact I am five minutes too late to snap up a beautiful wooden antique dressing table and stool for a princely sum of $50 much to my chagrin!
But I move onto the important part: the food. The food section is in a little corner of the market and comprises of three stalls, a well packed Thai stall with long queues and eager patrons waiting to purchase noodles, satay and curry puffs. There is also a cake, ice cream and coffee stall called “Piccolo”.
Next to that is what I found was to be serendipitous surprise, a Hungarian stall featuring an item called Lángos. At first, it doesn’t look that interesting, just like deep fried bread but after trying the samples of the sugar dusted Lángos and the garlic Lángos at the front, all plans of eating from the other stalls are abandoned. They’re heavenly and choosing one is quite the dilemma.
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