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.

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.

Guava paste

I love quince paste. Love it. Make it every year. Hunted all over town and stood in front of my stove for 8 hours while 39 weeks pregnant and in the grip of some bizarre hormonal quince madness making the damn stuff. You know what? I’d give it all away for guava paste. This sweet, crazy goodness came in a satisfactorily large tin from Casa Iberica in Fitzroy. Oh and it brought friends – a truly gorgeous hard goats cheese that completely lacked that sometimes confronting goatiness, some lovely ham and (bliss!) chorizo. Wrap it small goods, smear it on bread, cuddle it up with cheese, feed slabs of it to your kids. Think of it constantly and try to resist its sweet, sweet siren song. Dare you.

Prawns stuffed with pork

The tastiest wee creatures of the sea stuffed with the tastiest wee creatures of the land.These delights were stuffed with a very simple paste of pork mince, coriander, black pepper and fish sauce, dredged in a mixture of rice flour and plain flour,dipped in egg and deep fried. Smear them in a commercial sweet chili sauce – good, good,good. I served these up with a zinging and blisteringly chili-hot green mango salad and an incredibly simple sweet and sour pineapple curry. One of the best all round spreads I’ve plated up in a while -we sweated and giggled for a solid half hour.

Campari and orange

My drink of the season. Not much to say- it’s the taste of summer. The Campari is dusty and bitter and strange and the orange is refreshing and easy and it won’t get you too tanked. My husband doesn’t like it. I try not to be judgemental about this.

Sage and onion stuffing, Christmas cake and flaming puddings

As my northern English grandparents start to age and I evidently start to mature (!!), certain secrets are being passed down. I witnessed the making of the Christmas cakes and now know the sage and onion stuffing that for me is the only thing worth putting up a turkey’s bum. Grandad’s piece de resistance is always the Christmas pudding, however. It is dense with fruit but somehow maintains that spongey soft steamed pudding texture. Drenched with brandy and ceremoniously set on fire before being bathed in custard and hard lumps of mum’s brandy butter, I’ve never had better.

Tim and Jane’s leftovers

My brother and his family arrived at our folks house from Singapore on boxing day and stayed a week – great to see them.  They are GOOD at food. I rocked up at mum and dad’s on new years eve, hungry and with a lot of  cooking to do. And,  joy, they had heaps of leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. All very middle eastern – lovely strips of polenta crumbed calamari, tartare sauce made with yoghurt and tahini instead of mayonnaise (therefore kind of healthy and easy to eat lots of) and a yummy salad. There is little more delightful than a fridge full oflittle bowls of fantastic leftovers that need to be eaten.

I haven’t even got to the balinese seafood satays, the lentil salad or the five spice roast chicken but I’m spent and the guava paste is calling…

Chinese New Year soon – better get my skates on!

I find this a joy to make (vegetarians read no further). It’s very physical to prepare, rubbing the stuffing mix into the flesh, trussing the wee beastie up and rubbing salt into the skin. You need to blast the roast in a hot oven to get really crispy crackling, so you get to listen to that glorious bubbling and splattering for a while which always reminds me of the sound of suet in the pan that accompanied my grandparents’ roast dinners.  Then you drop the temperature back to moderate for a few hours – so you get a whole afternoon or morning of porchetta aromas in the kitchen. You need to have no fear-you will not overcook it. The meat is best left to cool to room temperature or eaten out of the fridge the following day. This way the meat and stuffing mix sort of settle in together and get real friendly with each other.  This is a test of endurance. Pete and I always lurk with intent around the meat and it’s a relief when its wrapped in the fridge and safely out of temptation’s way.

Porchetta

• Pork loin,boned, fat and skin still on (this recipe will do fora 1 -2 kg piece of meat)
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage
• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds
• Generous amount freshly ground black pepper
• Sea salt
• Olive oil
• Cooking string

Heat oven to around 220 degrees Celsius. Score the skin of your pork. This can be a tricky job but try and get the score lines as close together as you can as once the skin gets really crispy the meat will be hard to carve except along the score lines. Mix the garlic,rosemary, sage and fennel seeds with a small amount of olive oil to make a paste. Open out your loin and lay it skin side down. Grind a VERY generous amount of black pepper on the meat and then rub the herb and garlic mix all over the meat. Take a short end of the loin and roll it up tight like a jam roly poly. Tie it securely with cooking twine so that it makes a tight roll.Rub some oil into the skin and then a good whack of salt, making sure you get salt into the grooves of the score lines.

Place the meat in a roasting pan and cook in hot oven for 20 mins to half an hour to get the skin going. Take the temperature down to 160 degrees Celsius and cook for a further 3 hours. Baste occasionally with pan juices. Remove loin and let sit for at least half an hour before serving. Can most happily be made a day ahead and served cold.

Another highlight today was the purchasing of 3 different types of stinky little fish. A big jar of shrimp paste – I’ve been in need so I can have a shot at a shredded chicken salad I learnt in a Balinese cooking class. Some dried prawns because I’m keen to try out a recipe for toasted, shredded,crispy, prawny madness from Burma. And finally some dried anchovies. Queenscliffe music festival is coming up and I thought a big round of nasi lemak for breakfast for the gang would go down a treat. So I’ll be toastin’ those wee little buggers up.

Oh and I’ve also now got a pile of banana leaves in the freezer waiting to wrap themselves around something tasty.

Shoe shopping sucks the big one – spend your money at the Asian grocer instead.