Neil Perry's (Dead Easy) Whiting Meuniere

Fish has always been a tough sell for the Toddler. She turned her nose up at my carefully constructed Leek and Salmon Pie and appeared to be revolted by my Polenta Whiting Fish Fingers. So I decided to get really, really simple and it worked. I don't have any pictures of the end product because I didn't think she would like it but if you imagine a Toddler waving a whiting fillet in each hand then you get the picture.

I know that whiting seems expensive when you see it in the shop for $40+ a kilo but you don't seem to need much - I bought $15 worth (about 300 grams) and it provided 4 adult serves and 2 toddler serves.

This recipe is adapted from Neil Perry's 'The Food that I Love' and it is particularly good for adults and Toddlers. I love not having to use eggs and crumbs to coat the fish because it seems much more messy and involved than the below process.

8 whiting fillets
Ghee (you could use olive oil but ghee is nicer and easily available from the supermarket - see previous post for more information)
About 1/2 cup milk poured into a bowl
About 1/2 cup cornflour poured onto a large plate
Lemon, butter (optional)

Dip each whiting fillet into the milk and then coat in the cornflour. Melt enough ghee in a frying pan to cover the bottom and then fry the fish on each side until slightly brown and the cornflour and milk has formed a nice crust.

At the end you can melt some butter in the pan and drizzle it over the fish along with some lemon juice but we opted just to have the lemon juice.

Notes:
* Check for whiting bones before cooking each piece and then check again with each piece you give the Toddler.
* Lovely with roasted sweet potato chips on the side.

Top Quick Meals for Mummy and Daddy when Toddler is asleep

Shredded beef stir fried with sliced garlic, chilli and then so much broccoli and beans that you won't need to bother with rice. Finish by drizzling over a sauce of 1 part fish sauce, 2 parts lime, 1 part water and 1 part sugar. For the truly lime addicted add some lime zest to the sauce.

Potatoes baked in the oven with their skins on served with shredded raw cabbage, shredded carrot, red onion (which has been soaked in red wine vinegar for one hour to remove the acidity), stacks of shredded cheese, hot sauce and natural yoghurt.

Scrambled eggs cooked slowly in butter with fresh pepper at the end and no guilt about not eating a proper dinner.

Pasta drizzled with a sauce made out of olive oil, lemon juice and parmesan cheese. Rocket, baby spinach and/or canned tuna could also be added - just leave the whole lot on the heat long enough for the cheese to melt and the greenery to cook or the tuna to warm through.

A Perfect Birthday Weekend

I woke to the sound of a round of applause from the Toddler at 4am in the morning and I guess if you have to wake up at that time then it is not a bad way to do it.

This was followed up by a lovely sleep in as my husband occupied the Toddler (as he does every morning). After that I was presented with my first ever gluten-free chocolate croissant. Not quite the same as the authentic gluten version but wonderful all the same. Lunch was a lovely gluten-free baguette and this was even better than the croissant - crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. My husband sourced these lovely treats made by Schar (which is Europe's No 1 Gluten Free range according to the packaging) from a Flannerys grocery store.

The rest of the weekend was filled with french cheese from Normandy, red wine from Italy and some pleasurable pottering in the kitchen to make the Toddler spelt and oatmeal biscuits (pictured). I'm finding that she needs something at morning and afternoon tea and fruit is not always the answer.

Last of all I got to make proper fish stock for the first time. Our fish store (Avanti's Fresh Seafood Market) gave me some spanking fresh heads for free when I was purchasing some whiting. This place has lovely fish and the widest variety I have seen in Brisbane - I even saw some salted cod that is used in the Basque region of Spain. The fish stock is made the same way as the recipe for chicken stock except you sweat the onion in a little butter to begin with and then add all of the other ingredients and cook for only one hour. Today we are going to have the stock as the basis for a Counterfeit Congee with whiting.

Nigella Lawson's roasted vegetables and haloumi

I have a kind of love/hate relationship with Nigella Lawson. I love her simple food ideas and the fact that she encourages people to cook well for themselves and their families. On the other hand, I am deeply envious of her good looks, intellect and charm (along with her gorgeous dining table and amazingly well equipped kitchen).

Today I copied her wonderfully easy idea of roasting an array of vegetables and then adding some haloumi cheese on top of the vegetables at the end of the cooking time and popping it back into the oven for 5 minutes to melt. I only used very small slices of the cheese because haloumi is quite high in salt so not so good for the Toddler in huge chunks.

You don't need a recipe to follow - just make sure you have vegetables from a number of different colours. We used beetroot, pumpkin, purple onion, tomatoes and a few potatoes. On the side we had a simple dip made out of very finely sliced mint leaves, natural yogurt and a squeeze of lemon juice. This was great finger food for the toddler - even though she ended up with pink hands from the beetroot.

Notes:
* If using Beetroot it is a good idea to roast them first with the skins on and add them back into the pan just before you add the haloumi on top. If you don't do this you run the risk of all of your vegetables being pink (which may be a good thing depending on what your toddler is like...).
* This wouldn't freeze well but could be reheated the next day. We ate all of it in one go.

Eating everything in the kitchen

It is official. We are moving in 4 weeks and it seems like a small army will be required to move the huge amount of Toddler toys and clothes. Also, the cat will require her full collection of scratching posts and chewed fake mice at the new digs. All of this means that I have resolved to pack as few food items as possible. It seems absurd to carefully transfer 100 grams of flour or 1 jar of anchovies but, equally, I can't bring myself to throw any food away.

This has led to an unprecedented amount of kitchen creativity as I struggle to use all of those purchases that seemed like such a good idea at the time (like Liquorice Tea and at least 5 different jars of red curry paste). As a result the Toddler has been feasting on the following in the past week:
* Claudia Roden's Tagine of Lamb with caramelized baby onions and pears (to use up spices and rice),
* Buckwheat and potato spaetzle (noodles) with a tomato sauce (to use up some of my 8 types of flour), and
* An adaptation of Moosewood Restaurant's Egyptian Lentil soup in Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special (to use up lentils and spices).

I've reproduced the recipe for the soup as it is the easiest of the above dishes and I have also been asked by a number of people for a basic lentil dish that kids will actually eat.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped white part of leek
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrot
4 garlic cloves chopped
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
5 cups water
1 cup dried red lentils
1 cup chopped potato

Step 1: Heat the oil in a soup pot and gently sweat the cumin, turmeric, leeks, garlic, onion and carrot for several minutes. Then add the remaining ingredients and bring the soup to a boil.

Step 2: After the soup has boiled bring the heat down a little so that it gently simmers and let it do this for about 15 minutes or until all of the vegetables are cooked.

Notes:
* Makes about 6 adult serves and is very cheap to make.
* Freezes well.
* Some lemon juice stirred through to taste at the end also makes this nice for an adult.
* The Toddler loves this soup with a bit of natural yogurt stirred through at the end (obviously don't use yogurt if you are avoiding lactose).
* The soup could be pureed completely for a baby who is not eating lumpy food yet.
* If you wanted to make it a bulkier soup you could add 1/4 cup of rice at the same time as you add the water.

A Proper Chicken Stock

I don't believe in making chicken stock and stowing it away in the freezer in tidy portions and I think any recipe which only calls for 1/2 a cup of stock can probably have water added instead. This means I never feel tempted by the (salt laden) supermarket stock and when I go to the trouble of making a stock I do it properly and use it for the next three or four nights.

For example, this week we had roast chicken and then the next night I made a chicken stock. Half way through making the stock I ladled some out directly into a risotto. The next night we had a light minestrone based on the stock (made in about 20 minutes) and the day after involved a batch of double chicken polenta (eaten soft and then later on baked in the oven to make crunchy squares). Finally, the Toddler had some pasta, pumpkin and broccoli simmered in the last of the stock for her dinner tonight.

The above sounds very strident but I intend this to be a message to the Toddler when she is grown up - make your own stock for you and your family or don't bother making recipes that require it.

2 onions
2 carrots (tops and tails as well)
2 sticks of celery (leaves as well if you have them still)
4 cloves roughly chopped garlic
Organic chicken carcass or whole organic chicken - you can use the leftover bones from a roast dinner or you can poach the whole chicken in the stock. I could give you the usual lecture about why organic chicken is better but the truth is that once I cooked a non-organic chicken stock that ended up with a lot of black foam and this freaked me out so much that I have never tried to do it again.
Approximately 1 cup of old veggies lurking in fridge that need to be used up - old spring onions, broccoli, leeks, beans, snow peas, cababge - just don't use the nightshades (eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes etc). This is optional but there is nearly always something of this description that needs a home in the stockpot.
10 peppercorns
2 or 3 bayleaves, several sprigs of fresh parsley, thyme or oregano. This is also optional but good to add if you have them.
1 tablespoon of vinegar (preferably unrefined apple cider vinegar)

Roughly chop all of the vegetables and place everything in a deep stockpot together. Pour in enough cold water so that everything is covered and almost bring it all to the boil. Bring the heat down a little but so the stock gently simmers and let cook for up to 6 hours - 2 will do at a pinch. Add water during the cooking time if vegetables or bones become uncovered.

After it has cooked, strain off the vegetables and bones and store in the fridge or freezer.

Notes:
* According to Jude Blereau in 'Wholefood for Children' the vinegar is added to 'help draw all gelatine and minerals from inside the bone'. She indicates that stocks (and particularly bone stocks) are incredibly nourishing for young children.
* Don't be tempted to use add hot water to the pot - the point of the stock is for the flavour to be gradually drawn out.

Friday Food Frolic - Jackpot Noodle Toowong

The Toddler and I have fallen into the habit of eating out for lunch on Fridays. I want to enjoy this lovely age when everything about eating out is fascinating and she can't get out of the high chair by herself (so the potential for chaos is limited).

Today we went to Jackpot Noodle Toowong for the second time and can't wait to go back. There are not many establishments which have so wholeheartedly embraced the idea of the Toddler being my food companion. The staff literally run to get the high chair and are very helpful with bringing extra plates and drinks of water. This means that all I have to bring is the Toddler and a bib.

This week we had the vegetarian fried rice and the deep fried chicken. I ate the lovely crispy (and salty) skin and made sure that the Toddler only had the very inner part of the moist chicken flesh. The vegetarian fried rice is full of vegetables chopped very finely so it was easy for her small mouth. Being fed with chopsticks rather than a spoon seems to delight the Toddler and she attacked the food with a particular relish that I haven't seen at home.

What makes this a great toddler restaurant is the relaxed sense of fun about the place. Today a total of five different cooks came out in shifts to eat their lunch at the table next to us and the Toddler adored them all. They clucked with amazement when she demonstrated how she feeds herself and they also kept her endlessly amused by pulling faces and waving.

At the end of the meal the staff didn't care that we had wreaked utter devastation and left rice and chicken everywhere. They waved off my attempts to clean up with a single napkin and made me feel that they wish everyone would enjoy their food so much that they tip a large portion of it onto the floor.

All in all it was the making of a very special memory for me and (hopefully) for her it suggested that food is just as much an enriching social activity as well as a biological need.

Menus and locations can be found at http://www.jackpotdining.com.au.