Souvlaki

When I was a student in Melbourne, one of my favourite foods was Souvlaki. There were plenty of greek cafes dotted around Melbourne and I was partial to the souvlaki where the meat was in cubes and grilled on a hot plate rather than the kebab kind where it was sliced off a spit.

When we visited the Gold Coast late last year, I was quite disappointed to find that Souvlaki wasn't as readily available as it was in Melbourne. However, I was really thrilled to be able to find a shop selling souvlaki and to introduce my children to it. They really loved it and I decided I would need to try and make it one day.
One of the things that has stopped my from making Souvlaki is that we dont seem to have souvlaki bread available her in KL. The use of pita bread was never a consideration as the pita we get is somehow to thick. Of late however, I have noticed that the Mission brand has different types of breads - Pita, Naan and also Wraps. The wraps look like kind of a thinner version of a souvlaki bread and so I reckoned I would try it out. In my minds eye, I would use lamb chunks for the meat, make a yoghurt garlic sauce and throw in a bunch of chopped tomatoes and lettuce all wrapped up with the flatbread.

Christmas 2014

Christmas this year was a very quiet affair. We contemplated having an open house but decided instead that we would just celebrate it quietly with the family over a nice lunch. The Lovely Wife wanted a nice sit down lunch and asked if she could invite over two of her dearest friends, Lynn and Tina. I decided to make a leg of lamb, a simple citrus salad and a chicken casserole. I would get some pita bread to eat with the lamb, make a little rice and of course potatoes to finish everything off. I contemplated making dessert but since I had made the obligatory chocolate cake, I reckoned that would be enough for dessert.

Usually at Christmas Eve, we host dinner for the extended family where we also open all our presents. However, this year, we celebrated Christmas Eve at my Mom-in-Laws house and my parents joined us there too. Both my brothers had plans of their own so again it was a quiet affair.

Karniyarik - Turkish Style Eggplant with Lamb

Still keeping on with the theme of what I served for the dinner for eight the other night, when a few friends came over for dinner, this is the Main Course.

I really wasn't sure what I wanted to serve as the main meal. I wanted something a little different yet something that would be satisfying. Some years ago, we visited Turkey and about 4 years ago, I posted my variation of a dish we had enjoyed in Turkey that I called Turkish Style Lamb Sausages.

I learnt since then that what we actually had in Turkey and really enjoyed was Karniyarik - Turkish Stuffed Eggplant. For my version, I didn't really stuff the eggplant but rather cooked it with loads of minced lamb in a tomato based sauce.





I also used some fresh basil to give it some added flavour and I think if I make this again, I might spice it up a little with some chilli flakes. This is what I did:

Ingredients
900g minced lamb or mutton
3 bay leaves
2 large onions - chopped
8 cloves garlic - chopped
3 tsp oregano
4 tomatoes - quartered
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 Tbsp Tomato paste
50g fresh basil
6 large brinjals / eggplants (the longish kind)
Salt
Black Pepper
Method

Halve the brinjals lenghtwise and then cut into pieces about 4-6 inches length. Sprinkle with salt to degorge. Meanwhile, sautee the onions, garlic and oregano. Then add in the mince and cook well. Add in the fresh tomatoes and canned tomatoes and allow to simmer.
While the meat is simmering, rinse the brinjals and then place in a baking tray. Lightly oil the brinjals and then make a small incision lengthwise followed by three diagonal incisions making sure you dont cut in too deep. Bake in a 170C oven till the eggplants are tender - about 30 mins.
Once the meat sauce is thick but still with enough liquid, season with salt and pepper. Add in the basil and mix well. Spoon a layer of the meat sauce into a baking pan then place the brinjals on the meat. Try to get the brinjals close to each other. Cover the eggplant with the remaining sauce and then cover with aluminium foil. Bake again in a 180C oven for another 30 mins to make sure brinjals are really tender and soak up some of the flavour from the meat sauce.


The brinjals turned out really well although there were some thicker parts that weren't as tender as they should have been. I had also thought of garnishing each brinjal with a slice of tomato and some sliced chilli but when the time came we were all too hungry and just wanted to get down to the business of eating!




I served this with rice and The Lovely Wife made a Greek Salad that went really well with this dish. I liked the mix of taste and textures and the mince tasted really good with the eggplant. My son had some the next day for lunch and he really enjoyed it. So all in all, a rather successful Karniyarik - although maybe not as authentic as it should or could have been!

How to make a Difference - Roast Lamb with an Asian Twist

Before I start on this post, I just want to say that no matter how lucky we are to have access to so much good food, there are a host of people in other parts of the country not to mention the rest of the world that are NOT so lucky. Some dont even have access to a decent meal much less decent water supply. So spare a thought for them and remember that awareness can be one of the greatest weapons to solve any problem.

I am submitting this dish to the BloggerAid: Because We Can Help event hosted by my good friends and two of the creators of BloggerAid - the duo of Psychgrad and Giz. They strongly believe that they can make a difference and I do to! Now on to the post...

Roast Lamb is a favourite with most people no matter how it's made. Everyone in my family enjoys a good Roast Lamb and when I say everyone, I mean my parents, brothers, sis-in-laws, parents-in-law, brothers-in-law - you get the idea. Roast Lamb is a definite favourite.


Problem is, getting a good leg of lamb is expensive over here and so Roast Lamb is hardly made at home. Usually, we enjoy our Roast Lamb at functions where a nice big leg of lamb is roasted over the spit by the caterers. Sometimes, my brother will make a Roast Lamb at home for a special occasion too. I've never made a roast leg of lamb before. I much prefer Roast Beef.



Neverthelss, when The Lovely Wife's aunt came down from Australia for a visit and brought along a leg of lamb, my Mom-in-Law asked if I could cook it. I decided to do something a little different since I reckon just roasting the lamb with garlic and then eating it with mint sauce can be kind of boring. Tasty sure, but still boring...


I decided to throw in an Asian Twist to the Roast Lamb and this is what I did:

Ingredients
12 gloves garlic - sliced
2 1/2 Tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
12 Dry Chillies - cut into large pieces
2 eggplants - diced
1 inch ginger - sliced thinly
1 onion - diced
4 tomatoes - quarterd
3 tbsp oregano
Black Pepper

Method
Pierce holes in the lamb with a knife and stuff the holes with the sliced garlic. Leave to marinate. Meanwhile, sautee the oregano with black pepper. Add in the ginger and onions and cook till fragrant. Add in the chillies and fry well. Add in the egglplant and tomatoes and cook till soft. Add in the dark soy sauce and mix well. Rub this all over the lamb and then bake in a preheated 200C oven for about 45 mins then reduce heat to 160C and roast for another 2-3 hours, covered, till lamb is cooked through and tender.



The lamb was lovely and tender and had a nice spiciness to it. The family enjoyed it immensely and I personally thought that this was a much better way to enjoy a good leg of lamb!

Lamb Sausage with Caramelised Onions and Potatoes

You ever have one of those days when you are just tired? Not a lazy tired kind of day but just tired. Not just physically tired but mentally too. You know, the ideas just dont seem to come and you're too tired to think about it too much coz well, your just tired.
I think you get the drift. The last week has been kinda like that. Just tired. I know tiredness is never an excuse for anything but I just wanted to vent that I felt tired. And I'm not going to apologise for it. So maybe that's why I fell short of posting last Friday. I had the intent, really I did. I even started writing something but then I started getting a block at every step so I just swore softly to myself and turned off the computer.

So anyway, now that I've vented, lets get on to food once again!

I love sausages, especially the nice meaty kind that's full of 'real' meat rather than all sorts of fillers. So when my mother called me some time ago and said that she had bought a whole bunch of Lamb Sausages and asked if I could make fry them up as part of a family meal, I happily said YES!

At first I considered just frying them whole. Then I thought of cutting them into rounds and just frying them. I reckoned that that would be kind of boring though so what I figured would be a good idea would be to fry the Sausages with Potatoes - kind of like an all in one Fry-Up.


No real recipe here but this is kind of what I did.

Ingredients
1kg lamb sausages
6 onions
2 cloves garlic
5 potatoes
fresh rosemary
Black Pepper
Chilli Flakes

Method
Slice the sausages into thick rounds. Slice onions and chop garlic. Peel and cut potatoes into large cubes. Fry the onions until they turn a nice brown. They are now caramelised and will tend to be slightly sweetish. Add in the garlic, rosemary, black pepper and chilli flakes and mix well together. Add in the sausages and cook well. Add in the potatoes and cook till tender. The oil from the sausages will flavour the potatoes as well. Season with more black pepper if desired.



This was a really satisfying dish although I must admit it was a tad fatty/oily. It went down really well with thick slices of french bread and was a firm favourite with the kids.

I mean really, who can complain about Sausages and Potatoes...?

Roasted Lamb Chops

My Mother got a great deal on Lamb Chops over the New Year and she asked if I could whip up something with them for lunch at my Grandmothers house on New Years Day. The Lamb Chops brought back memories of my Uni days when my flatmates and I used to buy lamb chops and then phsically chop them into smaller pieces to make lamb curry. Why in heavens would we do that? Simply because lamb curry is absolutely fabulous and buying lamb chops was a damn sight cheaper since we were all on shoe string budgets as students.


I briefly considered making curried lamb chops but decided that would be a waste of nice chops. So, I decided to marinate them and then roast them in the oven - much like how I would roast a leg of lamb.

What I did with these chops was fairly simple. I threw them into a large bowl and added in some pepper, garlic, lots of Fresh Rosemary and finally about 1/2 litre of Prune Juice.



I've learnt that prune juice is a wonderful substitute for Red Wine and it gives a great flavour to meat. I let the lamb marinate in this concoction overnight and then rubbed some salt on the chops before slow roasting them in the oven for about an hour.


No doubt, a nice leg would have tasted so, so much better but these lamb chops turned out very nice as well!

Moussaka

This was the main course that I prepared for the Dinner at Restaurant Dharm last Saturday(8 Sept).

Most of the dishes I make have some history to it - some sordid story involving hungry, drunken flatmates or some girl I was trying to impress in university or just simply a dish I experimented with. More often than not, it involves trying to recreate something my wife tasted elsewhere and raved and ranted about (she can get quite crazy in these rants and raves.....) However, I must admit and give credence to the fact that my cooking repertoire increased substantially, maybe even exponentially, after I got married.

Moussaka is typically a baked casserole with layers of minced lamb and eggplant covered with a layer of bechamel sauce. There are some variations on this theme and I generally like to add layers of potatoes as well. My moussaka doesn't really have a story other than the fact that I decided to make one an evening long, long ago. I looked at various recipes and decided to just whip up a bolognese style sauce, using lamb of course, and use layers of eggplant and potatoes.


This dish can be a little bit oily due in no small amount to the lamb as well as the fact that you are supposed to fry the eggplant and potato slices until they are tender. In an effort to be a litle bit more health conscious, I baked the eggplant slices this time but I think frying them makes them a whole lot more tender and the flavours tend to fuse and meld in better.

This is my recipe for Moussaka:

Meat Sauce
3 large round Eggplants (also known as Aubergines or Brinjals)
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
800g Minced Lamb
3 potatoes
4 Large Tomatoes
3 Tbsp Tomato paste
2 tsps Black Pepper
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
Oil for frying


Bechamel sauce
500 ml milk
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
2 Slices Cheddar Cheese
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg Powder

Extra cheddar cheese for topping
Cut eggplant into thin slices. Degorge the eggplant by sprinkling with salt and placing in a colander for about 20 minutes. This removes the excess moisture.
Chop onion and garlic and set aside. Slice tomatoes into thin slices and set aside
Pare potatoes and slice into thin slices. Set aside.
Heat Oil and fry onion, garlic and pepper till fragrant. Add in lamb and cook well until meat is well browned. Add in tomatoes and cook till tomatoes break up. Add tomato paste and some water. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Season with salt. Allow to cool.
Meanwhile, pat eggplants dry. Heat oil in large frying pan. Be careful not to use too much oil as eggplant will soak a lot up. Fry eggplant until tender. Drain
Fry potato slices until tender. Drain
Prepare the Bechamel Sauce
Melt butter in heavy saucepan. Stir in flour and cook the flour in the butter. Add in milk and mix well ensuring that flour is incorporated. Cook on high heat stirring constantly till mixture thickens. Break cheese slices into mixture and stir well. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste

Assembling the Moussaka
Spread some of the meat sauce into a rectangular casserole dish.
Cover with a layer of eggplant slices then potato slices. Cover with another layer of meat sauce. Do this repeatedly finishing with a layer of meat sauce.
Cover top layer with Bechamel sauce. Sprinkle with chopped Cheddar cheese
Bake in 190C Oven for about 20 minutes or till top is lightly browned. Allow to rest for about 10 minutes before serving.

Creamy Lamb and Two Mushroom Linguine

I think I've mentioned before that the easiest way to get me to cook something is for my wife to mention that she ate this "wonderful dish and really enjoyed it." Nothing gets me into the kitchen faster - oh, except if my kiddies ask for something.

And so, my wife came back home with stories of how she had "tremendously enjoyed" her lunch at some place at work. She went on to describe the thin, juicy pieces of lamb in a lovely creamy sauce blah, blah, blah... I just listened, trying hard to fight these feelings of volunteering to make her something similar. I was just about to say "I'm glad you enjoyed your lunch" when she smiled at me demurely and said "I bet you could make it."

So I did. We went over to my Brother-in-laws for dinner last Sunday and I volunteered to bring dinner. Since his two kids and mine all love pasta, I decided to take up my wife's 'challenge' and make the "Oh so lovely, lamb pasta" that she had been raving on and on about..... (no, really she wasn't that bad)

For want of something better to call it, I call it Creamy Lamb and Two Mushroom Linguine. It had to be Linguine, coz that's what she had at the restaurant and if I had used anything else, she may have said that the linguine was better. And we Can't Have That now, can we?

How did I make this? Quite easy really.

Ingredients
400 g lamb
4 lamb sausages
4 cloves garlic - chopped
2 large onions - sliced
Black Pepper
2 bay leaves
2 tsps basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
half a leek -sliced thinly into rounds
200g white button mushrooms
200g swiss brown mushrooms
50 ml cream
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
100 ml milk
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 red capsicum
Salt


Method
Cut the lamb into thin strips then season with salt and pepper. Cut the sausages into thick rounds. Cook the lamb in a little oil until nicely browned. Set aside. In the same pan, cook the sausages. Set aside. Using the same pan again, sautee the garlic and onion with the basil, oregano, bay leaves and thyme. Add in more black pepper if you like. Toss in the leek and continue to sautee. Add in the mushrooms and cook till the juices come out. Throw in the lamb, sausages and the cream and mix well together. Allow to simmer.
Meanwhile, make a roux by heating the butter and adding in the flour, stirring well to combine. Add in the milk and cream together with the nutmeg and cook till thickened. Add this into the lamb mixture and mix well. Let simmer to allow flavours to infuse together.
Just before serving, slice the capsicum thinly and stir it into the hot sauce.

I've never used lamb in a creamy pasta dish before but it was certainly delicious. The lamb sausages made a nice difference too. The kids loved it and my wife was pleased. With that lovely twinkle in her eye, she smiled at me and said, "See? I knew you could do it, and even better too!"

This is also the dish I am taking to the Six Month celebration Party for Presto Pasta Nights hosted by Ruth at onceuponafeast
. Congrats Ruth!

I also made a Pavlova for dessert and took along some of the leftover Daring Bakers Challenge - but I cant tell you what that is since its a secret till the 29th of this month - suffice to say it was delicious!

Feeling lazy after Ratatouille - so it's Lamb Chops

We all went to watch Ratatouille this morning! My wife had bought tickets last night and we went to watch the movie at 11am down at KLCC. The kids were excited and even more so to take their sweaters along. Yeap, the air-conditioning can get a tad bit chilly in the cinema. It was a really fun movie and we all had a really good time!
After the movie, the kids were tired and so were we. I was especially tired as I had woken up early to do this months Daring Baker's challenge. Anyway, after the movie, we popped into the Supermarket and I decided to buy some Lamb Shoulder chops for dinner.
The chops were lightly marinated with garlic, ginger, black pepper, some soy soyce and HP sauce and then slowly baked in the oven. I stir fried some mushrooms with loads of garlic as well coz in this household, mushrooms are almost obligatory. Then I quickly stir fried some zuchinnis and made some more Herbed Rice. This time, I added some pine nuts and turmeric to the rice so it turned out slightly nutty and with a nice yellow colour.
So that was the nice simple meal tonight. Not much work but yet a lot of satisfied faces. The kids especially liked thelamb as well as the rice and mushrooms - but we all know how much they like mushrooms!
Maybe, just like in the movie, my kids will one day eat something at a restuarant that will bring back memories of the food their Daddy used to lovingly cook for them........

Turkish Style Lamb Sausages

The inspiration from this dish came from our visit to Turkey about 8 years ago. We ate this lovely dish which was made out of minced lamb and large pieces of brinjal/eggpalnt/aubergine in a tomato based sauce. I decided to improvise on it by making sausages and cooking them in a tomato based sauce with lots of brinjal cut up. This is my recipe:

Ingredients
For the Sausages
600g Minced Lamb
1 large Onion
4 cloves garlic
1 inch ginger
3/4 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp chilli powder
Salt
Black Pepper

For the Sauce
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp basil
4 tomatoes - quartered
1 can stewed tomatoes
2 tsp tomato paste
2 large brinjals - diced
1 large green capsicum - diced into large pieces
Olive Oil
Salt
Black Pepper
Paprika

Method
In a food processor, grind onion, garlic and ginger into a fine paste. Fry this paste till fragrant. Add in chilli powder and curry powder and continue to fry for about 2 mins - just enough to cook the spices. Place mince in a large mixing bowl and add in the spices. Season with Salt and Pepper. Mix well then leave to marinate for about 1/2 an hour.
Shape the meat into sausages and place on a baking sheet covered in greaseproof paper.


Bake in a 200C oven for about 20 mins. Remove from oven and drain juices into a cooking pan.


Sautee the garlic, oregano and basil in the juices from the sausages. Add in tomatoes and brinjals. Cook until tender.


Add in can of stewed tomatoes and break up tomatoes to release their juices. Season with Salt and Pepper.
Add in the cooked sausages and some water. Cover the pan and allow to simmer for about half an hour. Add in tomato paste and mix well. Allow mixture to thicken. Add in capsicums and cook for another few minutes. Capsicum should still be crunchy.

Sprinkle liberally with paprika. Serve with herbed rice - or anything you want really!! :)