spoon

Herbs and Spices

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Being a novice foodling my adventures in the kitchen have been somewhat mixed.


Somedays good and somedays not so good...

My first disaster occured last month soon after my mother came out of hospital after an operation.
Being the good daughter that I am I decided to cook her a meal using my newly acquired cook book "Women's Weekly Classics" purchased for $9.95 at the newsagency.

(Great starter by the way for new cooks, it has every basic recipe and an easy to follow method, I reccommend for all new cooks out there to purchase this and once you have mastered these classics you can experiment!)



I thought I would make something light and tasty for my mother's breakfast while she was convalescing.


So I turned to the first page and 'Creamy Scrambled Eggs' was on the menu. I was going so well with the recipe:
8 Eggs
1/2 Cup of cream
30 g butter
2 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh 'chives'



Until the recipe called for 'chives'. Not exactly having the correct idea of what chives were at the time or being able to find any in the cupboard - I found the next best thing starting with "C".... cinnamon. So instead of 2 tablespoons of choppped chives I added two tablespoons of cinnamon.

Now as you can imagine cinnamon didn't really cut it as a substitute, one being a herb and one being a spice.

Cinnamon
Chives


The final result was a brown rubbery looking mass on the plate, nothing like the picture of the yellow fluffy like clouds with specs of green. I served it to mum and she was convinced I was trying to poison her - I even tried to give it to my Jack Russell 'Bella", who usually eats anything and everything - and she even refused it.

FOOD TIP 1: When cooking the most important thing to do is to know all your ingredients, no matter how simple the recipe is. (I know this is obvious for you advanced foodlings, but you'd be suprised by the lack of knowledge of the younger generations on food, things are hardly passed down like they use to be.)

FOOD TIP 2: Never replace cinnamon for chives..... :)


I hope your enjoyed this story as much as my family likes to tell it!

Hope these tips help!
Foodling 4

Busshari Japanese Restaurant - Restaurant Review

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Hello everyone!

The fourlittlefoodlings are back with another restaurant review! Today's review is about one of my favourite japanese restaurants in Sydney, Busshari Authentic Japanese Restaurant. Located along the main roads of Potts Point and about 5-10 minutes walk from Kings Cross train staion, it is not exceptionally hard to find.

When you enter the dimly lit restaurant, you are greeted warmly by the hospitable staff who are ever so nice and friendly. The restaurant is fairly small and the chef quitely slicing the sashimi and preparing sushi at the sushi bar.


The staff there were very helpful and the waiter still remembered us from 2 weeks ago which was rather impressive. Having been here before, we sort of knew what we wanted and wanted to try new items. Busshari has a daily special menu which was rather interesting and excellent if you are a frequent customer and want to try new and seasonal dishes.

The first item we ordered is a definte must try, the Seafood Sashimi and Seasonal Vegetable Salad. It has to be one of the best salads I've ever had and I'm not kidding! The vegetables in the salad are fresh and crisp and the sashimi slices in the salad are thick, succulent and fresh and with over 4 kinds of seafood in the salad. The salad dressing is the main lead in the salad which ties everything together, its refreshing, tangy and nutty, an excellent and mouth-watering dish to start the meal with!

Next up is the Chef's Sashimi Selection Plate which is highly recommended as well! The sashimi is so wonderfully fresh and thick and has to be one of the best and freshest sashimi selection I've had in a while. My friend commented that the chef's slicing skills is really good and clean too.

Spider Sushi Roll, was a wonderful dish. The soft shell crab was crispy and tasty, wrapped with avocado and cucumber and red tobiko on the outside. The combination made this dish suprisingly appetising and craving for more. The only down side of this dish was the rice which was overly sticky and soft and it fell apart as soon as you bite into the sushi.

Next is the Grilled Eggplant topped with Miso Paste. This dish has a very interesting concept, with one side of the eggplant topped with black miso paste and the other side with another type of miso paste, the "black and white" concept was appealing and appetising and was suprisingly delicious and the eggplant was juicy and the combination with the miso paste tied in really well. Both of the miso paste were different in taste and texture, thinking about it now makes me crave for more.

We also ordered Beef Tataki Salad, which is thinly sliced beef topped with grated daikon and spring onions. The beef was wonderfully made and it was made just nice. It was very light and refreshing and it went pleasantly well with the soy based dipping sauce that came with the dish.

This next dish was a daily special that day and because I loved scampi, it was something I just had to try! This is the Pan-fried Scampi topped with special mayonnaise made by the kitchen, the outer bowl which contained the scampi was like a cracker, very crunchy and tasty just that it was too oily for my liking, the scampi was pan-fried nicely however it lost the special texture and sweetness you get when eating raw scampi and so this dish was a miss for me.

After going through all those dishes above, my friends and I were still itching for some food so we decided to give the Rainbow Sushi Roll a shot, in the menu description, it was tuna, king fish, ocean trout, king prawn, cucumber and avocado so my friends and I were expecting a beautiful sushi roll and all kinds of different fish wrapped in rice so we were rather disappointed when this dish arrived. The taste was rather expected and it was nothing special, so this would be a miss for me as well.

And lastly to end our wonderful meal at Busshari, we had desserts!

We ordered a Dessert Platter where we got to pick any 3 desserts in the dessert menu and were in smaller proportions, something like a sample platter which for us we got the black sesame ice cream, roasted green tea ice cream and sesame tart. I have to say that I really enjoyed their dessert! Everything in the dessert platter was suprisingly lovely and was not overly sweet nor bland. Both the ice creams managed to retain their original flavour without it being too sweet and the sesame tart has to be my favourite in this platter, it was not too sweet and had a strong sesame taste to it which was something of my taste.

The three dishes above were full size desserts, the Roasted Green Tea Ice Cream and my favourite dessert of the night Mont Blanc aux Marrons which were all served with Warabi Mochi.
The Mont Blanc aux Marrons is chestnut puree with vanilla mousse where the outer layer of the tart is chestnut puree which was pleasantly sweet and a nice creamy texture with vanilla mousse in the middle of the tart which was light, airy and slightly bland just right to even out the sweetness from the chestnut puree with a crunchy tart at the bottom when put together makes a wonderful combination and just the thing to end the night beautifully.

Overall I really enjoyed my meal at Busshari, the winners for the night defintely had to be the Seafood Sashimi and Seasonal Vegetable Salad and the Chef''s Selection Sashimi Plate. I absolutely adored these two dishes and wished I could bring home these two dishes to savour at home. I wished I stayed near Busshari so I could have these two dishes everyday! It has to be one of the best japanese restaurants I've been to in a long time.
Price: $50-$70 per person

Busshari Authentic Japanese Restaurant
119 Macleay St Potts Point 2011 
Opening Hours: Mon-Sat 6pm-11pm

Tel: +61 02 9357 4555
Website: www.busshari.com.au
Reservations: reservations@busshari.com.au

Hope you guys like this restaurant review!
Have a great week ahead!

Foodling 3

Mum's Butter Chicken

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You may think that butter chicken is a typical Indian meal, however in India, not many people cook it on a daily basis, instead sticking to the basics of vegetables and dahl(lentils), however in my Australian Indian family we love our chicken and nothing beats mum's butter chicken.

It's not just my family that loves it though, just this weekend was my younger sister's 13th birthday party, with 15 screaming 13 year old girls at our house camping out in the yard, they really needed a heartly meal to keep them warm. What better than butter chicken, but who knew that every single girl would be quietly sitting down completely clearing their plate of every last piece of chicken, some even tempted by seconds.

As long as i can remeber my mum has been making this meal at dinner parties and it's always been a favourite, with people requesting butter chicken whenever they come to our house.

So without any further ado here is the recipe:

my mum usually makes the marinade, but for a quicker and just as tasty alternative you can use any tandoor marinade in the supermarket i.e. prataks

Marinade
100g ginger
200g garlic
10-12 whole red chillies
4-5 cloves
1 stick cinnamon
5 cardamom seeds
5-6 whole black peppercorns

Roast the dry ingredients of the marinade and grind them together. Add ginger and garlic until you get a thick paste

Other Ingredients

1kg boneless chicken fillets
800g tomato puree
200g butter
400ml fresh cream
200g plain yogurt
3-4 sticks of cinnamon
1 teaspoon red chilli powder (optional)
salt to taste

Recipe

Cut the chicken into cubes

Mix the yogurt with 4-5 tablespoons of the marinade and marinate the chicken in the mixture. Add salt to taste

Allow the chicken cubes to marinate for at leaste 6-12 hours.

Grill the marinated chicken on a very hot barbeque or under the grill or in a wok. Do not overcook as it should be juicy.

For the sauce add butter to heavy based pan. Add the cinnamon sticks and saute lightly. Do not allow the butter to burn.

Add the tomato puree and simmer gently for five minutes.

Add the chilli powder and salt to taste.

Finally add the cream and cooked chicken pieces and simmer for five minutes. Save some cream for garnishing the dish just before serving.

Serve hot with naan bread or basmati rice.

SERVES 6

I hope you enjoy this recipe just as much as our family and friends. If you have any questions or want to comment please feel free.

Extra tip: Once my mum made this for one of our friends with a cholesterol problem who really loved butter chicken but couldn't have too much saturated fat, so she substituted the cream for plain yogurt and halfed the amount of butter. It still tasted pretty good, so give that a try if your a bit health conscious

bon appetit

Foodling 2

FISH MONGERS - MANLY - RESTAURANT REVIEW

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As part of the Greek Orthodox religion we are not supposed to eat meat on Wednesday or Friday as part of our faith, with Wednesday symbolising the day in which Judas betrayed Jesus and Friday the day in which Jesus was crucified.  

With my sister at a party and the rest of my family away, my mum and I found ourselves craving some fish.

With the Fish and Chips shop we hoped to order from closed, we found ourselves stumbling upon a local cafĂ© style Fish and Chips shop called “Fish Mongers” located in Manly.

At first glance the menu seemed ordinary, just your standard fish and chip shop menu with calamari, prawns, oysters etc, but it was far from it.

This restaurant was a break away from the traditional, boring and often fatty style of fish and chips. It was an exciting and refreshing way to eat fish, which I often find myself not a fan of.
Choosing to stay and eat in rather than having the food as takeaway, we both ordered herb crusted grilled salmon. I chose the side dish of hand cut chips and mum chose it with rice. The service was really quick…I even mentioned to my mum, “how come it never takes us this long to cook fish” …she wasn’t too impressed… :)

The food came presented in a clever plastic square bowl, which made the meal look absolutely mouth watering…I’m even drooling now just thinking about it (see picture).

From the first mouthfull, the balance of all the flavours was divine. It was light and refreshing, just the right balance of salt and mixture of all the other flavours. The fish nor chips were greasy like other fish and chip shops…it didn’t leave me regretting eating it, by the end of it. Their signature crunchy, thinly sliced, Kumara (sweet potato) chips added an extra bit of flavour that kept the balance of the meal just right. The extra condiment of the wasabi mayonnaise worked perfectly with the meal and was quite moorish, even though I do not like wasabi.

Researching into this restaurant a little, I found that there are several stores open throughout NSW including one in Bondi Beach and Byron Bay; and that it has had several good reviews about it from the “Good Food Guide” and “The Sydney Morning Herald”, stating such things as “…All sorts of great fish cooked in the way you prefer…served in a big box with, fat, hand cut, skin on chips…” and “…style setting fish and chip shop…”.
If any one finds themselves at Manly craving some fish and chips, believe me when I say this…YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY TRY THIS FISH AND CHIP SHOP!!!!


LOCATION:      Rialto Square, Shop 4, 11-27 Wentworth St, Manly, NSW, 2095

HOURS:            Open Monday to Sunday, noon – 9pm
                (Open on public holidays)

PRICES:           Although can be a bit pricey – it depends on the meal you get.
CONTACT:       Email: http://mongers.com.au/manly.html
                           Phone: 9977 1777

Hope you enjoy this restaurant as much as i did... take a few of your friends, the atmosphere is great and you will not regret it.  Let me know how you find it.

Kali Orexi 
  Foodling 1. 

DESIGN OF BLOG

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       The Four Little Foodlings.

Welcome to the Four Little Foodlings!!! :)

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Hey Foodling Followers,

We are The Four Little Foodlings and absolute lovers food....

Our blog is dedicated to giving you our own little twist on Recipes we love and have tried; Reviews of Restaurants, good and bad and finally some of our personal Cooking and Food Tips, just for you. :) 

We welcome you to this journey with us and hope you enjoy the little food adventures that we bring to you.

With love, 
     The Four Little Foodlings

P.s. Feel free to comment and follow us on twitter and on this blog.