One of our favourite weekend meals is chicken wontons. Tragically, you have to drive at least an hour from Apollo Bay to obtain wonton skins so I tend to get lots at a time.  I always intend to make enough to freeze some down – if you’ve got homemade stock and wontons in your freezer then you have instant wonton soup for dinner. Hooray! In reality, however,we usually eat as many as we cook. The wonton experience works like this – bowls of rice and bottles of soy sauce and black rice vinegar are placed on the table. The wontons are ferried from the kitchen and devoured in approximately the same amount of time it takes another batch to cook. It tends to become carnage; sweet, delicious carnage. In some ways, this is like yum cha.

Look, these dumplings aren’t particularly special but they are real crowd pleasers. The kids adore them and they make a really fun family meal. I strongly recommend getting some black rice vinegar for serving -its easily obtainable from Asian grocers. Use like soy sauce. Some notes on this recipe – I have no idea what kind of quantities I use, I make these very much on spec. So these amounts are a bit of a guess and you’ll have to experiment. There are a number of ways to cook them, which I’ll explain below.

Chicken wontons

• 40- 60 wonton or gow gee skins
• 500g chicken mince
• good teaspoon of minced ginger
• clove of garlic, minced
• tablespoon of finely minced spring onion
• scant tablespoon finely chopped coriander leaf and stem
• teaspoon of sugar
• splash of chinese rice wine or dry sherry
• teaspoon of light soy sauce
• teaspoon of oyster sauce

Mix the filling ingredients by hand until well blended. Each wonton skin will take about 1.5  – 2 teaspoons of filling. I have NO idea to describe the wonton rolling action but it doesn’t really matter -just as long as they are well sealed. I shape them with a flat base like a gyoza because I like to pan fry them.

Once the wonton are rolled, you can do a number of things with them. You can drop them straight into a gently simmering Asian style broth and cook for around 5 minutes to have wonton soup. You can steam them, or poach them in boiling water. I like to lightly oil a non stick pan, place the wontons on the pan so they start to fry lightly on the bottom. I then pour a small amount of water into the pan and cover it with a lid. The steam cooks the wontons but they get also get a nice crispy base. These wontons freeze very well but I do find that frozen wontons are best used for wonton soup. If doing this, do not defrost the wontons first but drop them into the stock while still frozen.

My dad and I learnt this recipe at a cooking class we took at Laka Leke. It’s a great addition to a special banquet style dinner as you can prepare the chicken and dressing in advance and toss them together just before serving. If you can’t get the fresh tumeric (promise me you’ll try), you can substitute 1 tsp of powdered tumeric and half a teaspoon of saffron. To toast the shrimp paste, wrap it in a single layer of foil and dry toast in a hot pan until you can’t stand the stink any longer, then pound it into a fine powder .

Ayam Panggang Sambal Matah (Balinese Chicken Salad)

• 2oo gm chicken breasts
• thumb sized piece of fresh tumeric, finely grated
• 1 tablespoon coriander seed, toasted and ground
• Salt and white pepper
• 6 tablespoons light olive oil (or other lightly flavoured salad oil)
• 4 shallots, peeled and finely sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic (peeled and finely sliced)
• Half a teaspoon of toasted shrimp paste, ground to a powder
• Juice of one lime
• Inner white part of a stem of lemongrass finely chopped
• Finely sliced hot red chillies to taste

Place the chicken between two sheets of cling film and pound flat with a rolling pin. They need to cook quickly or the marinade will blacken so you want them not more than a centimetre thick. Combine the grated tumeric, ground coriander, salt and pepper and three tablespoons of the oil and coat the chicken. Marinate for 1 hour and then grill or BBQ the chicken and leave to cool. Combine the remaining oil and ingredients to make the salad dressing. When the chicken is cool, shred it with your fingers and then toss it together with the salad dressing. I like to serve it piled high on a plate garnished with extra chili, finely sliced kaffir lime leaves and some grated kaffir lime rind.

It has to be said, however, that in the early days he was constantly telling me things that I didn’t want to hear. This is probably largely because Chinese doctors seem to have an uncanny knack of knowing exactly what you have been up to and there is nowhere to hide from their cunning diagnostic techniques. Anyway, my first consultation memorably included a ‘massage’ with hot cups and spoons which made me look as if I’d lost a fight with a tractor and advice to give up the chili and garlic. The advice was far more painful.

These instructions, delivered in a fairly offhand matter, utterly panicked me. Actually, it also panicked Pete. At the time I literally used chili and garlic in everything I cooked.  I mean, what the hell were we meant to eat? And, you know, I’m a hedonist and overall seeker of pleasure and (especially 15 years ago) tend to be disinclined to give things up just because they are bad for me. Anyway, we did it. We gave them up almost completely and in the process discovered a whole new world of home style Chinese and Japanese cooking. I do a lot of braising and poaching these days and the recipe that follows is a beautiful and homely hotpot. I believe that they are called lions head meatballs because the cabbage spills out around the meatballs like a lion’s mane. Pretty.

We went pretty much cold turkey on the garlic and chili for about 10 years. Although we very rarely eat chili now, the garlic has crept back in. I console myself with the knowledge that the fact that we live by the ocean apparently means that we can tolerate spicier food a wee bit more. Hurrah for the alchemy and balance of Chinese medicine! Either that,or my lack of self discipline is showing again…

Visit: Rosanna Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic.

Lions head meatballs

I think you’re meant to make these with pork but I do tend to get through an awful lot of pig so I do them with chicken. If you are braising these in a packet stock from the supermarket, water it down so that it is 50 / 50 chicken stock and water and add some ginger slices and a spring onion to the pan.  

• 750g pork or chicken mince
• Couple of slices of peeled ginger finely chopped
• 3 spring onions finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon shao xing or dry sherry
• little splash of soy sauce
• little splash of oyster sauce
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon cornflour and extra for rolling
• 1 wombuk (Chinese cabbage) soaked in hot water until softened.
• peanut oil
• approx 2-3 cups of chicken stock (preferably home made and asian style).

Put the meat, ginger, spring onions, shao xing, oyster and soy sauces, salt and tablespoon of cornflour in the blender and blend well. Shape the meat into generous sized meatballs then roll them in the extra cornflour (making sure to dust off the excess) and fry them until light golden brown in the peanut oil. Wrap each meatball in a softened cabbage leaf and pack tightly into a heavy based pan or hotpot. They need to be packed in tight to keep their shape so make sure you choose the right sized pan. Add the stock, cover with a lid and bring gently to the boil. Drop them down to a simmer as soon as they boil and cook gently for around 40 minutes. Serve them with steamed rice and splash with soy sauce and/or black rice vinegar for seasoning.

This recipe is for a dish I’ve been making for some years now, vaguely inspired by (although nothing like!) an avocado curry I once had at a Balinese restaurant. It’s very simple, very tasty and great for meat-free nights. Best of all, it’s totally adaptable. Basically it’s steamed rice surrounded by a few different ingredients and smothered in a sweet curry sauce. I use slices of mango,  avocado halves and deep fried blocks of tofu. You could also use hard boiled eggs, slices of tomato and cucumber or whatever else you fancy. I guess it’s basically a nasi campur style of eating – a buffet on a plate and so the joy of it is that you can chuck whatever ingredients you want on the plate and everyone gets something they like. My kids will only take a small amount of the curry sauce, but that’s just fine for now.

Look, I just completely made this dish up so please consider this recipe a guidleine only. Put whatever ingredients you want on the plate and whatever spices you want in the curry sauce. I can’t imagine that I’ve ever made this dish the same way twice but I do like to keep the spices on the sweet and fragrant side as they go so nicely with the fruit.

Mango rice with sweet curry sauce

• 1 onion, finely diced
• 2 ripe tomatoes, finely diced
• half a teaspoon of tumeric powder
• quarter of a teaspoon dried galangal powder
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 cloves
• 6 cardamon pods
• Kaffir lime leaf
• 1 teaspoon good quality curry powder
• stick of lemongrass, bottom part only, bruised
• tin of coconut milk
• Tablespoon fish sauce
• 2 teaspoons palm sugar
• 1 – 2 ripe mangoes
• 1 – 2 ripe avocados
• Block of firm tofu cut into 1 cm slices, each slice cut in half to make a square (does this make sense??!), dried with kitchen paper and sprinkled with salt, fried in 1 cm of hot oil until golden and crispy on both sides.

Gently sweat off the onion in small pan with just enough oil to stop it from sticking. When it’s starting to soften, add the tumeric, galangal, cinnamon, cloves, cardamon and curry powder, give it a stir for a minute or two, and then add the tomato. Fry this gently for a good ten minutes until it’s a sticky pink mess and then add half of the coconut milk (reserving the rest), the kaffir lime leaf and the lemongrass stalk. Simmer for another 10 minutes. Add the fish sauce and sugar, stir well and simmer for another couple of minutes. Taste and adjust the fish sauce / sugar balance accordingly. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve, pushing the pulp through with a fork. Set aside – this can be made well in advance. Just before you are ready to serve, reheat the sauce, adding the remaining coconut milk (this just freshens it up nicely and allows you to taste the coconut).

Remove the mango cheeks and score the flesh into 2cm slices along the length and gently remove. Halve the avocado, remove the kernel and skin. Starting about 1.5 cm down from the skinny end, slice each half in 2cm along it’s length. If you leave it intact at one end you can then fan it out into a nice attractive shape.  Put a neat round mound of rice in the centre of a plate. Place an avocado half, slices of mango and pieces of tofu in little separate piles on the plate. Douse the whole lot with spoonfuls of the curry sauce. Fresh herbs and crispy fried shallots make a delicious little mouthful of extra fun on top if desired.

Asian style pork patties and pineapple salad

• 1oog pork mince
• Handful of fresh pineapple pieces
• Handful diced cucumber
• Handful of fresh mango pieces
• dash of soy sauce
• dash of oyster sauce
• splash of fish sauce
• pinch of sugar
• squeeze of lime juice
• Steamed rice to serve

Mix the pork mince up with the soy and oyster sauces and form into little patties and whack into a non-stick frying pan on moderate heat until cooked. Make a salad out of the fruit and veg,  lime juice,fish sauce and sugar.Serve with rice. It’s a no brainer.

We used to go there when Pete was working as a projectionist at a City cinema. We went there when we were both working for a law firm. I went there with a colleague, fresh from excavating at the Old Melbourne Gaol and covered in filth. Nam Loong at one time fed our working lives and there were many delights to choose from which used to give you great change from 10 dollars. They make my favourite char sui bau and the best Singapore noodles. They can provide you with a plate of roast duck on rice for the kind of change you can find in your couch. But the dish that I find it almost impossible to go past is the Salted Chicken. This is a gently poached white cooked chicken with a spring onion and ginger sauce. Its a standard Chinese classic with many minor variations however I have cobbled together a recipe which replicates the Nam Loong Salted Chicken experience at home.

If you eat regularly at my house you will have had salted chicken. If you are invited for a meal at short notice there is a 50/50 chance it will be salted chicken. If you want to call me and invite yourself over for a salted chicken you can almost bet I’ll say yes. It is one of my kitchen standards. It is ridiculously simple to make but you must,must,must follow 2 rules:

1. DO NOT boil the chicken. Do not even think about boiling the chicken.If you do boil the chicken give yourself a good spanking and abandon the salted chicken and use the poor bird for something else. For those uninitiated in the process of poaching a whole chicken, do not let your fear of the method get the better of you. It wants to cook by basically sitting in a hot bath and you need to let it.
2. DO NOT use a blender to make the sauce. This gives it an unpleasantly mucousy texture. Use the method described below. If you do not have a mortar and pestle, you simply put the sauce ingredients in a jar and mix by shaking.

Salted Chicken

• 1 free range /good quality chicken
• 2 spring onions for the stock
• 4 slices of fresh ginger for the stock
• tsp salt for the stock
• sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons very finely chopped spring onions for the sauce
• 1.5 tbsp grated ginger for the sauce
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil for the sauce
• 1.5 teaspoons salt for the sauce

Rinse and dry the chicken and place in a stock pot with cold water to cover. Add the two spring onions, 4 slices of ginger and salt. Bring almost up to the boil but do not let the water get so hot that the bubbles do anything more than just barely break the surface of the water. Simmer very gently like this for 10 minutes then put a lid on the pot and turn off the heat. Leave for 45 minutes and then very gently put the chicken in a bath of iced water for a minute or so (until the water starts to warm up). This does nice things to the fat under the skin. Remove the chicken and gently brush with sesame oil. Put in the fridge while you make the sauce.

To make the sauce, pound the spring onions and the ginger together with the salt with a mortar and pestle and then add the oil and mix to a paste. To serve, chop the chicken chinese style and arrange on a plate with the sauce in a separate dish on the side for dipping. Eat with rice.

The big culinary revelation of Cambodia for me came about in an unexpected fashion. Pete and I had left Alex with our friend Andy (who was living in Cambodia at the time) and gone to ancient city of Angkor Thom. It started to pour with rain so we sheltered in a little food stall overlooking the surreal madness of the Bayon temple. Pete ordered a dish  described as “beef and potato” expecting it to be some sort of curry. It turned out to be good old steak and chips. The steak was from stringy Cambodian cows but had been marinated to soften and flavour it and the whole thing was served with a lime and black pepper sauce for dipping.

This sauce  is a sensation. I’ve made it a few ways but I like the method described by Wendy Hutton: you get an individual dipping dish for each person and  make a little pile of salt mixed with whole peppercorns pounded in a mortar and pestle and add a couple of wedges of lime. Each person can then squeeze the lime into the dish and  balance the sauce as they  please.  We did manage to get hold of some Cambodian pepper  which has a distinctively  mellow flavour that makes it much  more authentic but ordinary black pepper is fine. You could serve anything with it – fish cakes, tempeh, plain rice but this is how I like to eat it:

Cambodian steak and chips

The best thing about this is that you can make a perfectly ordinary steak and chips for the kids and serve the loc lac on the side for those who want it.

• Steak – whatever cut, and cooked however you like and sliced thinly to dip in the sauce
• Potatoes  for chips
• Oil for deep frying
• Finely  shredded iceberg lettuce
• Finely sliced tomato
• Finely  sliced cucumber
• Asian herbs (optional)
• Dollop of good quality mayonnaise
• Lime sauce (lime, salt and black  pepper)  as described  above

Basically all you are doing is assembling the salad ingredients  on  a plate with a nice dollop of mayonnaise and then serving with the steak and chips. If you are deep frying the chips yourself, make sure you do the double fry. That is, fry them on a medium heat until just cooked through. Remove from the oil and drain on a paper towel. Pump the oil up to extra hot and cook the chips in batches until golden. Oven cooked chips are of course easier and healthier but not nearly so much fun. Serve the chips and the sliced steak with the salad with the bowls of loc lac sauce on the side for  dipping.

I think this could be a great vegetarian dish if you replaced the chicken with deep fried cubes of  tofu. I omitted the chili (which the kids aren’t crazy for and which Pete and I don’t eat, other than on special occasions for traditional Chinese medicine reasons)- but it would definitely be even better with. I’ve cooked extra rice tonight and spread it out on a tray to dry in the fridge – fried rice tomorrow night.

And while I’m on the subject of Vietnamese food, if you haven’t had a look at Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam on SBS (Thursday 7.30),do so now! Last week he had a whole Mekong Delta fish, the scales of which puff up and turn crispy upon deep frying, drenched in a ginger sauce. Just totally sensational, really.

Stir-fried chicken with mango and cashews (Wendy Hutton, Green Mangoes and Lemongrass)

• 2 large firm ripe mangoes  – cheeks sliced off, scored diagonally into 1 cm wide slices and eased out of the skin.
• 3 tbs fish sauce, 1 tsp lime juice, 1 tsp sugar, half tsp salt, quarter tsp black pepper, mixed together until sugar and salt dissolved
• 250 ml vegetable oil
• 500g boneless chicken breast cut into 2cm squares (or replace with a block of firm tofu cut into cubes and fried until crispy)
• 2 tsp finely minced garlic
• 1 tsp finely minced large red chili
• 200g trimmed snow peas
• 1 medium ripe tomato
• Half a cup of dry roasted cashews

Heat the oil in wok until very hot. Cook half the chicken, stirring frequently for 2 minutes, remove with slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. Repeat with remaining chicken. Take the wok off the heat and remove all but 3 tbs of oil. While the wok is off the heat, add the garlic and chili and stir fry for a couple of seconds. If you keep it off the heat, then you’re less likely to burn the garlic which will make the dish bitter. Return the wok to the heat and add the snow peas, stir fry for 1 minute. Return chicken and add fish sauce mixture. Mix well, then add mango, tomato and cashews. Stir gently until warmed through.