food

I needed to look up some Portuguese recipes for a friend last weekend and obviously I turned to the very helpful Leite's Culinaria website. I did find the recipes I was looking for, plus a lot more. One of them was this simple, yet delicious soup recipe, originally from Tamasin Day-Lewis's book "Supper for a Song: Creative Comfort Food for the Resourceful Cook" . I've adapted the recipe a little to suit our tastes, and we'll be definitely making this again. Puréeing some of the chickpeas/garbanzos to thicken the soup was a neat idea, and you can add more or less pimentón (aka smoked paprika) depending on the freshness and strength of your paprika powder. While it's filling, it's also gluten-free and vegan, so perfect recipe for a Meatless Monday . Chickpea and Tomato Soup with Smoked Paprika ( Kikerherne-tomatisupp, kergelt suitsune ) Serves four 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 red onion, finely chopped 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 2 celery sticks,...

Beef nachos $12.50 Many a poor and thirsty student has ended up at the Lansdowne. For years it was famous for its $5 meals, and students from both USyd and UTS flocked there for a cheap feed and a schooner. Prices have increased since then, but only slightly, and renovations have turned the first floor of the Lansdowne Hotel into a bright and airy space. The main dining room has a school

Egg hopper $3 The crispy bits are always the best part. That's what makes the hopper — a popular Sri Lankan breakfast or dinner — so delicious. It's nothing but crunch, a thin batter that is delicately lacy around the edges. The batter is fermented from rice flour and coconut milk, giving a slightly sour taste similar to sourdough. Hoppers can be cooked as plain or sweet, but we like ours with

Friands again. I wrote about these dainty Australian cakes just a short time ago when posting a recipe for blueberry and lemon friands . This is the same basic recipe, but I wanted to use coconut this time and paired the pure white coconut with bright red  lingonberries . The combination worked like a dream! I am pretty sure that lingonberries - while widely available and used here in Estonia - are hard to come buy Down Under, so in a way it's a North-meets-South fusion recipe :) Again, it's an excellent recipe for using up those egg whites, when you're tired of making meringues and mini-Pavlovas. Coconut and Lingonberry Friands ( Pohla-kookosefriandid ) Makes 8 regular-sized friands 100 g unsalted butter, melted 125 g icing sugar/confectioner's sugar 30 g plain flour/all-purpose flour (50 ml or 3 Tbsp + 1 tsp) 50 g finely ground almonds 50 g grated/desiccated coconut 3 medium-sized egg whites a very generous handful of lingonberries Preheat the oven to 200C. Generously...

Cho Dumpling King is always surrounded by a queue of people. Often you'll find a staff member acting as bouncer to the crowds. She hands out menus with brusque efficiency, and it's only when you've placed your order that she'll put your table numbers down in her notepad queue. The restaurant name is a bit of a misnomer. There are no dumplings to be found here. Instead it's a mix of Taiwanese

Being one of the very few English-language blogs that focus on Estonian food (among other things), I tend to get quite a few emails with Estonian recipe requests or more general enquiries about Estonian food. Usually they are from people who have visited Estonia and tasted something they liked ( KAMA!!! ), and are now looking to recreate the dish at home. There are also quite a few expat Estonians writing to ask about dishes their grandmother used to make them in the US/Australia/etc when they were younger. Or people whose fiancée, husband, wife, adopted child, neighbour or best friend is of Estonian heritage and they'd love to make them something from Estonian culinary repertoire to surprise the given fiancée, husband, wife, adopted child, neighbour or best friend. I love those letters! Here's an email I got last August: Hi, I was just searching for Estonian Cheese Soup after hearing it mentioned in this story on NPR . Surprisingly, I couldn't find anything about it, but...

Don't look for a seat belt. Restaurant Arras is simply one helluva ride. Head chef and co-owner Adam Humphrey believes that all food should be fun, injecting the British dishes of his childhood with whimsy and humour. A historic former bond store houses Restaurant Arras, awarded one hat in the SMH Good Food Guide in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The heritage-listed building is a moody mix of

Have you got a glass of pickled beets lurking in the back of your fridge? If yes, then you could use them for making this colourful and lovely quiche. The otherwise sweet beets have quite a piquant flavour when pickled, and that works well with the saltiness of the blue cheese. I used Valio AURA, one of my favourite blue cheese (made in Finland), but it will work with any other crumbly blue cheese, too.. Beetroot quiche with blue cheese ( Pirukas marineeritud peedi ja sinihallitusjuustuga ) Serves six to eight Adapted from Valio, Finland Pie crust: 100 g butter, at room temperature 150 g all-purpose flour (one cup) a pinch of salt 2 Tbsp cold water Filling: 250 g pickled beets, drained and sliced 200 ml single cream 2 eggs 0.25 tsp freshly ground black pepper 1 tsp dried basil or 1 Tbsp fresh basil, chopped 150 g blue cheese (Valio Aura) Mix butter, salt and flour, then add the water and mix until a dough ball forms. Press onto a 24 cm pie dish, and place into the fridge to rest. (If y...

I've been making my own granola for years now, using different recipes so we wouldn't get tired of this specific breakfast staple. I've made malted granola, chocolate granola, rye granola, honey granola - to name just a few. However, I've just realised that I've only shared one of the recipes with you - malted granola - back in January 2009. Here's another recipe - slightly simpler than the malted granola one, using honey as a sweetener. I like this one with just raisins, but feel free to add your choice of chopped dried fruits to the granola at the end. Honey Granola Recipe ( Lihtne mesine granola ) 250 g old-fashioned oats (about 3 cups) 100 g almond slices 8 Tbsp runny honey 4 Tbsp neutral oil 4 Tbsp water raisins or currants (optional) Mix oats and almonds on a large baking sheet. Mix honey and oil in a small bowl, then add water and stir again. Pour the liquid mixture over the oats and mix until everything is well combined. Roast in a pre-heated 150 C / 3...

Balut. If the thought of eating brains wasn't terrifying enough for many people, the word "balut" is usually uttered with shock, repulsion or -- conversely -- back-slapping bravado. What is balut? It's a fertilised duck or chicken egg, incubated for 17-21 days so an embryo develops inside. The egg is steamed and eaten as a high protein delicacy in Southeast Asia. It's called khai luk in

Use your brain, I say, what did offal ever do to you? Hearts, livers, intestines and tongues... I find it odd that so many people who fear offal, or think of it as 'disgusting' are the same ones who will happily plough into hot dogs and chicken nuggets: high processed foodstuffs that are commercially manufactured using mechanically separated meat or meat slurries. Liquefied meat never looked

Today is Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Tuesday in many parts of the world, but Estonians and Scandinavians are celebrating lenten bun day or semla day instead. I've been baking my own semla buns for umpteen years now and even shared two of the recipes with you - perfect simple buns and decadent lenten buns with marzipan and raspberries . I've just finished baking a batch of the former and will be stuffing them with lots of creme chantilly once the buns are cool enough. Cannot wait to devour them!!! However, last year I also tried dark lenten buns, inspired by a recipe in a Finnish food magazine Ruokamaailma . There's chocolate everywhere - in the yeast dough, in the whipped cream, in the marzipan filling, so if you're into chocolate, you'll love this. I'd happily make them again (photos here are from February 2010), but I think I'd skip the marzipan-chocolate filling step completely. Chocolate semlor recipe ( Tõmmud vastlakuklid ) Makes about 16 buns Dark ye...

Polpette della Mamma $14 Mama's original style meatballs served with woodfired bread The meatballs, says Tony Ruggeri, started off as a joke. He and his sister Carmel, co-owners of La Casa Ristorante, had always kidded around about putting their mum''s meatballs on the menu of their new restaurant. As the restaurant opening drew near, Tony said, why not? Let's put them on. "Meatballs? Are you

Ever heard of friands? These are the Australian "cousin" of the famous French financiers , the little moist egg-white cakes. Both are excellent for using up all those egg whites in the kitchen if you're tired of making Pavlovas and meringues! There are some differences, however. Whereas the financiers tend to use browned butter and are plain, the friands are made with melted butter and usually with the addition of fruit or berries. Another difference is the shape - the financiers are (traditionally) baked in oblong rectangular forms (to look like gold bars, apparently), the friands are usually baked in small oval tins (though you can use regular muffin tins or even tiny fluted tins like this talented Estonian food photographer did). Dorie Greenspan has written more about those two pastries. I've adapted a recipe from BBC Good Food magazine. Note that I used ground whole almonds - hence the slightly darker colour of the cakes. The texture has more, well, bite to it ...

Somtum Pu papaya salad with fermented crab $11.90 You can smell a great papaya salad even before it arrives at the table. It's the strong whiff of fish sauce, the tingle of chilli, and for full flavour seekers, the salty pungency of fermented crab. Diving into this birds nest of papaya salad is guaranteed to awaken the palate. Crunching your way through a tangle of shredded papaya, crunchy

Wait, I know what you're thinking! Those kama and mascarpone truffles again? Nope. I know they look similar, but today I'm blogging about little savoury delights I've adapted from an Estonian foodblogger Elis . Last Thursday the Republic of Estonia celebrated its 93rd anniversary and some of my girlfriends came over to celebrate the occasion - and also say hello to our little baby boy . When trying to think of Estonian nibbles to serve, I came across Elis' recipe for  sprat and cream cheese balls and was sold at once. It's a play on a popular rye bread and sprat canapé, and I knew that my guests would love them. I was right - these went down a storm. I used slightly more cream cheese than in the original recipe. I must warn you - unless you live in Estonia and have easy access to rye bread and spicy sprats (' vürtsikilu '), you won't be able to make it (though you can follow this recipe and make the spiced sprats yourself). But this might inspire yo...

Entraña A shopping adventure with Mr and Mrs Pig Flyin last weekend led us to Uruguayan butchery, Joe Papandrea in Bossley Park. We'd made our way there on recommendation of friends, who'd rejoiced when they finally found the South American cuts of meat they'd been missing from home. Joe Papandrea Wholesale Quality Meats The Bossley Park Shopping Complex is a strip of shops fronted with

If you think you've already seen a recipe for Estonian soda bread here @ Nami-Nami, then you're not mistaken - I indeed blogged about it some three years ago . However, that recipe was with ricotta/curd cheese, and this one uses kefir or cultured buttermilk. There isn't such a huge taste difference - and they're both quick to make and delicious to eat. Caraway seeds are a traditional flavouring, but if you're not keen on that spice, you can leave it out. It's best served warm - I usually devour it with some butter and honey (see photo above) or lingonberry jam. The original recipe is from an Estonian cult baking book, Ida Savi's "Saiad, pirukad, koogid" (1989). I haven't changed it, really, as if it ain't broke, don't fix it :) Estonian Soda Bread ( Odrajahu-hapupiimakarask ) a 23x23 cm square tin, buttered 250 ml cultured buttermilk, kefir or fermented milk (1 cup) 1 large egg 1 tsp salt 1 tsp caster sugar 2 Tbsp vegetable oil or melt...