Oprego Burger Deconstructed and Deep-Fried Cheese

It was my boyfriend Dan's birthday yesterday and I'd say his two big loves (after me!) are fast food and gaming. And so on the eve of his birthday I made him a fun little dinner combining the two. I present to you the Oporto Oprego burger deconstructed... and invading space!

This little baby has chicken drumsticks, bread wrapped with lettuce, chili and coriander sauce and Oporto's "legendary Prego sauce". It doesn't have tomato and mayo like the genuine Oprego burger but it's finger-lickin' goood! The idea is, you grab a bread and lettuce cube, dip it in the Prego sauce and eat it with a bite of chicken. And unlike a regular burger where the juices soak into the paper wrapper, you can lick every drop of flavour from the plate!

Bread, cut into cubes
Lettuce leaves
6 chicken drumsticks
1 bottle Oporto's Prego sauce
1 large red chili
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons coriander leaves
Lemon juice
Olive oil

Wash and dry drumsticks. Season with salt and cook in butter (in the oven at 180°C for roughly 45 minutes or in a pan on medium-low heat with the lid on until cooked through).

Wrap strips of lettuce around the bread cubes and secure with a toothpick.

Finely chop up chili, garlic and coriander until almost a paste. Place in a bowl and add enough olive oil to cover. Add equal amount of lemon juice. Drizzle over chicken.

Serve with Prego sauce.

I know you're wondering, "Where's the cheese, yo?" Don't worry, I would never ever skimp on cheese. That's why I also made these bad boys!

Deep-fried camembert with fresh tzatziki

I tried these at Mizuya during a food blogger meetup in Sydney and I remember thinking that my boyfriend would love them. This recipe pretty much replicates the ones I had that night and the batter is perfect.

1 wheel of camembert
1 egg
¼ cup plain flour
Bread crumbs (fresh is better)
Vegetable oil for frying
200g Greek yoghurt
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Juice of half a lemon
1 tablespoon chives

Using a wet knife, cut camembert into 8 triangular slices. Carefully cut the white casing off. Insert a toothpick into the wide end.

Whisk egg and flour together in a shallow bowl.

Holding the toothpick, dip the cheese into the egg batter. Be careful to coat it all, including part of the toothpick, so the cheese doesn't ooze out in the pan. Allow the excess to drip off.

Coat in breadcrumbs and place on a plate. edit: Coating this batter in breadcrumbs is essential as it inhibits the batter from rising and forming the texture of really bad bread.

Freeze for 2 hours.

Deep-fry until brown.

Combine yoghurt, garlic, lemon juice and chives in a bowl for a dipping sauce.

Serve immediately!

Dan would probably like it if I mentioned that he doesn't actually play Space Invaders. He plays cool games like Modern Warfare 2, that also happen to ruin girlfriends' lives.

I'm kidding. I love you baby! :) Happy 22nd!

Longrain Restaurant & Bar, Surry Hills

85 Commonwealth St
Call 02 9280 2888 for lunch bookings only

Kids, remember that time when I went to this event called Taste of Sydney and I really wanted to try the yellow curry from the Longrain but was too full? Well, back in 2010 when your father and I and Uncle Tom were poor students, we decided to splurge on an expensive Thai meal in the trendy warehouse part of town. The maître d’ had told me on the phone that no bookings were taken for dinner, so we turned up a bit before dinnertime and had a drink in the bar.

Left to right: Pear and Cinnamon Sour ($16), Bloody Longrain ($16)

While the cocktails were delicious, there were a few let-downs from here on in. For a restaurant with a Chef's Hat, there was no mystique, no great attention to detail and most importantly, no pampering of the patrons. The staff were friendly enough but the way the restaurant was organised did nothing but make us feel unimportant. We had to get there early and line up (I hadn't done this since Ticketek wasn't online), we were seated on a long row of communal tables and we were served by a different waiter each time. I understand that this could be valued as unpretentious dining but it came at the expense of good service. At this point, we were willing to shrug this off because we were here for the food.

Clockwise: freshly shucked oysters with red chili, lime juice and deep fried eschalots ($4 each); red curry of organic grass-fed beef with green peppercorns and Thai basil ($41); eggnet with pork, prawn, peanuts, bean sprouts and sweet vinegar ($28.50); caramelised pork hock with five spice and chili vinegar ($29.50)

For the most part, I wasn't impressed with the food. The oysters were amazing, but the flavours in the eggnet salad were confused. The caramelised pork hock was meant to have a crispy outside but for me it was like eating extremely overdone pork. The red curry sauce was nice, but the way the beef was cooked did not do grass-fed beef justice.

Salad of crisp organic duck breast, sweet fish sauce, green mango and holy basil ($38?)

This was my favourite dish of the night. Unfortunately, this isn't what we ordered. I remember reading from the menu "salad of braised duck" and that's what I ordered. Braised duck isn't on the online menu, but a salad of crisp organic duck breast is, so I guess that's what we had because the duck wasn't braised. Only, we paid $44, not the $38 it says on the online menu?

It's a shame that Longrain didn't live up to my expectations, because I really wanted to love the place, but I think exceptionality and consistency are nothing short of requisites for restaurants of this price level. If this were an architecture and design blog, I would have plenty to rave about, so it wasn't a wasted evening at all. However, I can't help but think I'd find better at a Thai restaurant in the West for a fraction of the price.

So kids, I'm telling you this story because my very well-fed wallet and I can laugh about this now, and even though I didn't really notice back then, this was the beginning of my very own Chef's Hat adventure.

Mother's Day Vegetarian Banquet

Cooking up a feast for my mother is no usual challenge. You see, she is vegetarian and doesn't eat onion or garlic. This year, I didn't want to just bake a cake or make something bland tasting. So I took a leaf from the MasterChef book (so to speak) and looked back to my childhood.

Growing up, my mum often served tofu, eggplant and lotus root at dinner. It's funny how foods I used to take for granted I now find really interesting and fun to cook. The best part of the banquet was that I got to teach my mum new flavours for vegetarian cooking as well as it being an homage to the food of my childhood.

I decided to make an entrée of agedashi tofu with a red papaya salad, a platter of lotus root, eggplant and cucumber salad, and a soy and sweet ginger soup for dessert.

Agedashi tofu with red papaya, chili and sweet spicy Asian dressing

This was so amazing. The tofu had a light crispy outside and an almost silkened inside. The freshness of the papaya perfectly set off the sweet, spicy and salty dressing. I would've been happy if this was the only thing I'd made!

1 packet momen tofu
½ cup potato starch
Vegetable oil for frying
½ red papaya
½ carrot
1 long red chili
1 long green chili
Luke Nguyen's Vietnamese dressing (I took out the garlic)

Heat oil in a deep-fryer or a deep wok to roughly 170°C.

Cut tofu into 16 pieces and coat with potato starch (try to pack on as much as possible for extra crispiness).

Drop each piece gently into the oil down the side. Fry until lightly brown. Drain on paper towel.

Thinly slice papaya and chilis and julienne the carrot. (I julienned mine very roughly!)

Arrange tofu and salad on plate and drizzle the dressing over.


From top to bottom: caramelised lotus root, eggplant salad and cucumber salad (recipes courtesy of Kylie Kwong)

An interesting ingredient used in the first two recipes was the shao xing wine. I had never heard of it but when I smelt it, I recognised it from my grandparents' cooking. It's a very pungent rice vinegar wine, used in dishes affixed with the word "drunken". When cooked, it has a very unique sour flavour that goes incredibly well with vegetables. I did have a bit of trouble finding this in the Asian grocery store though. The bottle doesn't actually have "shao xing" written on it - it's all in Chinese! I would suggest either looking on the little shelf tags in the vinegar section or asking someone.

Eggplant is great for such intense flavours because it soaks it all up. I stir-fried my eggplant (instead of steaming) and I added chili and coriander. The end result was a piece of eggplant that was so delicious and firm enough for it to feel a bit meaty.

Caramelised lotus root

I'm not too sure how readily available fresh lotus root is in Sydney. Kylie Kwong recommends Randwick Oriental Supermarket in Kingsford for fresh Chinese ingredients, and they do stock lotus root. I remember that my mum sometimes used pre-sliced and frozen lotus root, so that's what I got from my local Asian grocery store.

Lotus root has the most interesting texture. I would liken it to water chestnut, but less smooth. The strange and robust texture goes really well with the sweetness. Because it's cooked on high heat for about 10 minutes, it creates this brown, sticky and caramelised sauce.


Cucumber salad

I love how simple and refreshing this is after sweet, sour and spicy. Even though the dressing is hot and sour, the juicy cucumber cuts through it all and balances out the flavours.

For dessert I wanted to make a tofu pudding (dao fu fa). I used to love it at yum cha. It's meant to be a really wobbly pudding (wobblier than panna cotta) in a sweet and warm ginger soup. However, my pudding didn't set in time so I served it as a rich soy milk soup with the ginger syrup swirled through. It was still really cute (especially in my new pink Marie Claire ice cream bowls!) and YUM, so I wasn't too bummed about it not being perfect. But not to worry, I'll try it again and share the recipe next time.

I hope everyone enjoyed Mother's Day!