Salt and Pepper Squid with an asian salad

For me, salt and pepper squid is always a 'go to' meal on a menu that I know will always have good seasoning and flavours. I quite often see it on menus in the entrees section so it is always good if you don't want to have that "  I've eaten too much - bloated feeling" not good!  Why do we order so much food and feel like you have to eat it all since you paid your good hard working money for it? Even if that means your gonna suffer afterwards. About 90% of the restaurants where I live have main meals that are way way over sized and honestly just shouldn't be able to fit in one persons stomach. Apparently our stomachs are roughly the size of our fists, but can actually stretch about 10 times larger than this! I dunno about you but the thought of my stomach expanding that much freaks me out a little!

What do you think?

Back the Squid!

This recipe has so many great flavours in it that complement each other perfectly!
From the spices in the salt and pepper mix to the chilli in the dressing!
This recipe is also gluten free as it uses rice flour.

The recipe is open to changes and is not strict at all! If you don't have ingredients- don't worry :)

Just swap and change thing around -Get creative! The dressing is quite hot so you can take out the amount of chillies if you wish :)

Recipe

Salt and pepper mix:

2 t Szechwan Pepper

2 star anise

1 cinnamon stick

2 t coriander seeds

2 t dried red chilli powder

100 g sea salt flakes

300 g rice flour

Asian Salad

1 cucumber, peeled into ribbons

1 red pepper (capsicum) deseeded and sliced

1 red onion, peeled and sliced

1 spring onion

1/2 cup fresh coriander

1/2 cup fresh mint sprigs

1/4 cup fresh Vietnamese mint

1 cup mung beans

Nahm Jim Dressing

4 birds eye chillies

4 cloved garlic, peeled

4 coriander roots

75 ml lime juice

3 1/2 T fish sauce

Squid

12 squid tubes

oil for frying

sweet chilli sauce, Asian plum sauce or aioli for serving.

What to do

 Salt and pepper mix-  put all ingredients except rice flour into a frying pan and fry gently for about 5 minutes or until fragrant.

 Then grind this with a pestle and mortar. Place in a bowl and add rice flour.

Salad - mix together all salad ingredients in a bowl.

Dressing -  Grind chillies, garlic, and coriander root in a pestle and mortar into a paste.

Then mix with lime juice and fish sauce in a bowl.

Toss through the salad.

Squid -  Clean tubes and remove membrane (if not already done)

Score the squid with a knife (not cutting it right through)

Then roughly chop into desired size. Or into rings if you prefer.

Dust with salt and pepper mix.

Deep fry in fryer or in a wok in oil.

Fry until golden. 

Serve with your chosen sauce.

Enjoy!

Let me know what you think! 

Brit xx

Bite sized food

A small collection of the latest canapes I have made in training :) 

Marinated scallops served in chinese spoons

Devils on horseback
-these a super easy to make! I definitely recommend trying these if you haven't :)

  

Sushi 

stuffed rolled Asian vegetables wrapped in rice paper

-these had an amazing flavour. yummy!

Venison with caramelized onions on homemade puff pastry. (garnished with roasted capsicum)

- Another simple canape to make that tastes great to please your guests!

Sensational Soups!

After a good 4 week break from my chef course, it's time to get started again.

Following my level 3 course that I started in February, I am now onto level 4.

The first lesson was breads but today I'm sharing my first soup lesson.

We made:
Oxtail consommé
Crab Bisque
Borscht
Seafood Chowder

Oxtail consommé
A consomme is a clear soup. To make the soup clear and 'grease free' there is a strict process throughout the making of the soup. You must constantly skim the 'skum' off the stock when you are reducing it down with the oxtail bones. This is so the stock is as clear as possible when you serve it. 
The 2nd process for getting the clear soup made is to make a raft from mince. For this we mixed egg whites with mince and finely chopped vegetables and placed them in our strained oxtail soup. Bring this to the boil and simmer once the raft of mince has risen. It is important at this stage not to stir it and break up the mince raft. Then you must carefully strain out the liquid soup from under the mince.
I love making this soup as it is a very cleaver way of getting a clear soup. It also brings out the perfectionist side of me to get the clearest soup possible!!




Crab Bisque
This soup has ALOT of flavour. and as a big seafood fan, I LOVED this soup. Unfortunately there were no crabs available in the area at the time so we used whole prawns and crab meat. We broke up the prawns with there shell still on and all. I'm guessing this is what gives the soup a great flavour! Luckily the shells are all strained out at the end :) so no crispy shells in your soup..!

Borscht 
To my understanding Borscht is a popular soup around Eastern Europe. There are lots of different versions of this soup that all slightly differ from the other. The main ingredient in this soup is the beetroot which gives it a vibrant bright red. Our version used spanish onions and red wine. We garnished this soup with sour cream, soft boiled egg wedges, and chives.
I had never made this soup before but I found it interesting but definitely an enjoyable soup! Very healthy too :) Its great to get colours in the diet!



Seafood ChowderYum!
Like I mentioned above, I'm a big seafood fan. So I loved this chowder. We put shrimps, blue cod, salmon, mussels,  clams, cockles and smoked blue cod into our chowder.It is very easy to make and I highly recommend it to all seafood lovers out there!