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Prawn, fennel and coriander Gow Gee – steamed dumplings

I created these little treats because I was searching for a light, healthy but hot appetiser that would complement an Indian dinner without filling guests up too much.

Steaming these dumplings is easy and quick and you can do this just before or as guests arrive which if you want to use these as canapés which works well.

The ready made “gow  gee” pastry is easy to find in Asian food store refrigerator section and very simple to work with. You will also need a steaming basket or steamer.

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I used fennel, ginger, cummin, fresh coriander and ginger to add subtle Indian flavours to the prawn filling. Most steamed dumplings recipes don’t require you to cook the filling beforehand but I decided to so I could roast the fennel seeds and use cooked onion. I didn’t use any chilli in these as I planned to serve with chilli oil on the side.

Ingredients

8 large, green or uncooked prawns – shelled, deveined and chopped into medium dice
1/2 onion very finely diced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tspn fresh ginger crushed to a paste
1 tspn fennel seeds
1/4 tspn cummin powder
2 tablespoons finely chopped coriander
Water and pastry brush
20 gow gee pastry wrappers
chilli oil or sauce to serve with dumplings

 

Method

Heat oil in frying pan over medium heat

Add fennel seeds and fry until fragrant but take care not to burn

Add onion and fry until transparent, then add ginger and cumin powder and sauté for half a minute

Add prawns and a pinch of salt and sauté for just a minute or two until they just turn pink.

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Remove the prawns, add coriander, mix through and set aside in a bowl to cool completely.

 

Take one gow gee wrapper at a time and place a teaspoon of the filling in the middle, brush edges of pastry with a little bit of water, fold over pastry pleating and pressing together the edges to seal completely. Repeat until all the filling has been used. Makes approximately fifteen to twenty dumplings.

Lightly oil steamer basket and place dumplings in it spaced without touching each other. Place steamer over boiling water, cover and steam for ten to fifteen minutesIngredients until wrappers are translucent and tender.

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Serve with chilli oil or sauce to the side.

Shanthini3 Comments

Irish Sourdough Soda Bread

This looks like a great recipe for Irish Soda bread to go with my Irish Lamb Stew compliments of the intriguingly named Mouth Brothels blog….

It is St. Patrick’s Day and the most Irish bread I know is soda bread. Basically a bread made from baking soda, buttermilk, salt and flour, it was long a staple of thrifty homemakers. Soda bread is a quick bread with little kneading or rise time, so by adding my sourdough starter, I basically quadrupled […]

via Sourdough Rosemary Soda Bread — Mouth Brothels

Shanthini2 Comments

Irish Lamb Stew for St Patrick’s Day

This is an old family favourite stew made extra delicious by the addition of crispy fried bacon and the use of white pepper. I love lots of fresh thyme in it as well.

Perfect way to celebrate St Patrick’s Day no matter where you are in the world🍀🍀🍀

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Irish Lamb Stew

Ingredients
5-6 lamb neck chops,with some of the meat cut into smaller chunks off the bone
1 tspn salt
1 tspn black pepper
1 tspn white pepper
½ cup flour
½ cup water
Vegetable oil and butter
4 cloves of garlic crushed
2 onions sliced into thickish rings
Chicken stock
2 carrots chopped into medium size chunks
2 desiree potatoes chopped into quarters
Half a bunch of thyme leaves stripped from stalks
2 bay leaves
1 cup white wine

Method
1. Place bacon in frying pan and cook until crisp and fat has rendered into pan
2. Put lamb, salt, black pepper and flour into mixing bowl and coat lamb evenly
3. Brown lamb in batches on high heat in frying pan – might need to add butter to pan which helps brown lamb when bacon fat runs out
4. Once finished with frying pan deglaze it by adding a cup of water and keep pan juices aside
5. Place a thin layer of oil in the casserole pot, then add garlic and half the onion and sauté until onions become golden and transparent
6. Add bacon pieces, lamb, white pepper, thyme and bay leaves to casserole pot and cover with wine, deglazed pan juices and chicken stock – simmer for 40 minutes-1 hour.
7. Taste to see if extra pepper and/or salt is needed
8. Add potatoes, carrots and rest of onion to lamb and simmer for 20-25 minutes until potatoes and carrots are tender
9. Garnish with freshly chopped parsley and serve with irish soda bread

Shanthini5 Comments

Indian Spiced Crab with crispy wafers

This makes a delicious canapé served with crispy thin wafers or mini pappadums on the side. Also be perfect on betel leaves if you can source them. Buying the pre-packed  crabmeat makes this a very quick and easy recipe to make. I made this recipe up on Christmas Day and it received good reviews from the family so thought I would share…unfortunately no end product photos!

Prep time: 5 minutes  Cooking time: 10 minutes

Ingredients
1 x 400g/500g tub of crab meat (available from seafood shops or supermarkets in Australia) – fork through crab meat to break chunks up
1 onion finely diced
1 tablespoon of ginger and garlic paste (2 cloves garlic and equivalent ginger ground to a fine paste)
2 sprigs of curry leaves removed from stalk
1/2 cinammon stick (preferably cinnamon bark)
1/2 teaspoon cummin powder
1 red chilli finely diced (can be omitted)
1 tspn black mustard seeds or nigella seeds
1.5 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil
salt to taste
Handful of coriander leaves, very finely chopped

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Method:
Heat oil in non-stick pan over medium heat
Add cinammon bark and curry leaves to flavour oil until curry leaves stop spluttering
Add onions and cook slowly (sweat) over medium heat until translucent and tender
Add ginger and garlic paste and sautéed for 1 minute
Add mustard seeds, chilli and cummin powder and let heat through for 1 minute
Add crabmeat and cook through for 3-4 minutes to allow crab to absorb spice flavours – – continue to break up chunks into crab flakes
Taste to see if salt required
Remove curry leaves and cinammon stick
Add very finely chopped coriander leaves and mix through
Serve in bowl with a spoon with crackers on the side or make up individual serves by placing a spoonful of the crab mixture on each cracker

Shanthini4 Comments

Review: Ji whizz in Canggu, Bali

We were recommended to try the newly opened  at Ji Restaurant at the Hotel Tugu in Canggu by a friend so took a taxi from Seminyak for the roughly 35 minute trip, depending on traffic for dinner.

Arriving at Hotel Tugu in Canggu, we were immediately impressed by the truly special setting created by the huge Garuda statue and furnishings in the hotel lobby. The restaurant and bar are situated next to the Hotel Tugu whose owners have an amazing collection of Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian antiques and collectibles which feature in their hotels and venues.

We started with cocktails on the rooftop bar overlooking the busy beachside bars of Canggu with glimpses of the ocean over the rooftops, watching the sun setting as we sipped on our literally smoking CoCo Sexo cocktails, a delicious mixture of pineapple, rum and coconut juice served in coconut jars over dry ice. The bar area is eclectically decorated with beautiful artisan lights and plantings with indoor and outdoor seating.

Ji restaurant itself is housed in a 300+ year old Chinese temple that the owners transported to Bali and rebuilt, filling it with an amazing collection of antique prints and photographs, sculptures and statues. The restaurant furnishings are also suitably matched to give an overall ambience that transports you to another era. Ji means temple in both Chinese and Japanese.

The menu features Japanese fusion cuisine, with beautifully presented fresh sashimi and sushi platters, tempura, noodles and soups. We loved the succulently crispy tempura prawns and the “melt in your mouth” Angus Kobe beef tenderloin served with tangerine. The seaweed salad with crab and thinly sliced fennel was a perefect balance of sweet and salty and was dressed for success!

This restaurant is definitely not a “try hard” in either the food or decore departments – it’s the real thing, good value for the experience and highly worth the visit to Canggu. The Hotel staff called us a car for the return trip and we were already dreaming of our next visit on the drive back to Seminyak.

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