daring cook: cold soba salad (success!) and tempura (fail)

Blog-checking lines: The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com

adding dried noodles to boiling water a handful at a time

as I added more noodles to the saucepan, I used them to move already
cooking noodles to keep them from sticking

using a fork to separate last noodles added to saucepan

Horrifically late Daring Cook post this month tee hee! I made everything last week but because of moving to another town I've been running around getting my car sorted, seeing friends etc. etc.

bringing noodles to boil, adding cold water, and bringing to boil again
until noodles are cooked

The soba salad was delicious and my little brother even liked it! Because Japanese food is always presented beautifully with everything sliced and diced to perfection I think I'll be using Japanese cuisine to work on my knife skills this year!

removing starch from noodles to prevent them from sticking together

The salad was very easy and quick to prepare and because there wasn't much 'real' cooking, it was also very relaxing to prepare.

making spicy dipping sauce - very good!

The flavours of the spicy (mustard spicy) dressing were lovely with the nutty noodles and even though I thought the crisp texture of the veges would be lovely with the soft noodles, my favourite accompiament was actually the slices of creamy avocado (though a little harder to eat with chopsticks!).

Mum very much enjoyed this. She is wearing a hideous that I
haven't managed to get rid of it yet.

directions for eating: put vege in dipping sauce bowl, add noodles,
mix them both a bit in the sauce then slurp up!

Now, here are my sad excuses for failing with my tempura vegetables: first time ever deep frying anything, stovetop elements not working properly causing the temperature to rise and drop dramatically, didn't realise the cornflour in the tempura batter had clumped together and dropped to the bottom of the bowl resulting in vegetables pretty much being dipped in a batter of water. Ok, I'm done complaining now. Next time I'll be a tempura pro!!

I nearly made an egg tempura!

I made another Japanese meal, tendon, out of the other component of this month's challenge, the tempura vegetables. My version consisted of bowls of warm brown rice topped with tempura veges and a simple dressing called tentsuyu.

crappily 'tempura-ed' zucchini, capsicum, potato, kumara

And here is why I didn't do a lot of cooking beginning of February. I scraped the crap off both my palms going for a run. Owwwwweeeee!

but I didn't cry!

What a depressing and excuses-filled post this has been! Next week I'm starting my culinary course - exciting food times are just beginning!!

Cold Soba Salad
Recipe was brought to the Daring Kitchen by Lisa of Blueberry Girl and can be found here.

You can find other soba noodle salads and successful tempura veges from my fellow Daring Kitchen members here.

pumpkin fondue

Fondue. Pumpkin. Cheese. Melted cheese inside a roasted pumpkin.

Mum and I made this as a side for Christmas dinner.

It may be Summer in New Zealand but because my Mum is super thrifty she stores pumpkins under the house that she's saved from Winter. 

We got a little excited and pretended we were working in a professional kitchen. 

AKA Mum and I screamed 'YES, CHEF!!' at each other after anything we said.

 

I am so prepared for culinary school.

The original recipe calls for a mix of Gruyere and Emmental cheeses but my mother doesn't like those cheeses so out they went. 

I was a little bummed but the fondue was divine and anyway, have you seen how much those cheeses cost?

Pumpkin Fondue

Adapted from Gourmet

The pumpkin Mum and I used had, to us, a normal amount of flesh but we couldn't help but wish there was more fondue to go with the pumpkin. to get the right proportions, I think a little of the flesh must be left behind :(. Also, this is a very relaxed dish in that you can use whatever size pumpkin you like, using more or less baguette and cheese mixture appropriately. We used a 5lb pumpkin so my other ingredient amounts have been calculated accordingly!

We oiled a large roasting dish and where the pumpkin didn't cover the oil, it started to smoke like crazy! So, make sure to only oil a roasting dish where the pumpkin will be sitting.

3/4 of a baguette, cut into 1/2 inch slices

3 1/2 kilo orange pumpkin

1 teaspoon salt, divided

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup reduced-salt chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

2 cups grated Edam cheese

1 cup feta cheese

Olive oil for brushing

Preheat oven to 450F/225C with rack in lower third. Place the baguette slices in a single layer on a baking tray and toast them in the oven until tops are crisp even though the bread will still be pale, about 7 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Make a hole in the top of the pumpkin by cutting a circle (3 inches in diameter) around the stem. Use a spoon to scrape out all of the seeds and any loose fibres, including the top of the pumpkin. Sprinkle/press 1/2 teaspoon of salt onto the inside of the pumpkin.

In a medium bowl, stir together the cream, nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

In another medium bowl, stir together the cheeses.

Put a layer of toasted baguette in bottom of pumpkin, then cover with 1/2 cup of cheese and about 1/4 cup cream mixture. Continue layering bread, cheese, and cream mixture until pumpkin is filled to about 1/2 inch from top, making sure to use all of the cream mixture (you may have some cheese and baguette left over). Pop the pumpkin's top back on.

Oil a roasting dish where the pumpkin will be sitting (too much oil exposed to the high temperature and it will smoke!) and position the pumpkin on it. Brush all over the pumpkin with olive oil. Bake until pumpkin is tender and filling is puffed, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Note: Pumpkin can be filled (and chilled) 2 hours before baking.