Amah's hengchai moi (spinach congee)

June 8, 2024

   

One of my friends kindly gave me Junda Khoo's new Malaysian cookbook Ho Jiak for my birthday.  It's a pretty meat heavy book, but I flicked through it and scoped out dishes we could adapt. I got into Hetty McKinnon's congee a few winters ago, and I was immediately drawn to this family recipe for spinach congee. 

Substitutions were fairly simple: vegan mince for pork mince, veggie stock for pork stock and some weird mushroom salt we had in the kitchen instead of dried shrimp. It's a time consuming recipe, but it's all very simple - lots of gentle simmering and stirring. Our version was browner than I was imagining - the soy sauce and mushroom salt gave it a kind of earthy tone. The good news is that it tasted great - savoury and rich and hearty. I think it needs the chilli crisp to cut through the richness a bit, but with that it was superb.

I might go for the easier, quicker Hetty version next time I'm in the congee mood, but I had fun making this and powered through the leftovers all week at work.

Amah's hengchai moi (spinach congee)

(adapted from Junda Khoo's Ho Jiak)

500g veggie mince

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon plain flour

1.8 litres of veggie stock

3 tablespoons mushroom salt (this was our sub for dried shrimp)

200g/1 cup of jasmine rice

5 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 garlic cloves, peeled

1 tablespoon veggie chicken stock powder

250g mushrooms, chopped

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 bunch English spinach, washed and roughly chopped

garlic oil, chilli crisp and fried shallots to garnish

Stir the mince together with the soy sauce, white pepper, sugar and flour and set aside.

Bring the veggie stock to the boil in a large saucepan.

Dry fry the mushroom salt and the rice in a wok for a couple of minutes until fragrant and then pop it all in a bowl for later.

Heat the vegetable oil in the wok and lightly fry the whole garlic cloves and the mince - for veggie mince this is pretty irrelevant to be honest, but good to stir everything together nicely. Add the mince to the boiling stock along with the rice and faux-chicken stock powder and bring everything back to the boil. 

Once it's boiling, lower the heat to medium and simmer uncovered for at least 90 minutes - you want the rice to have broken right down and started sticking to the bottom a bit. Lower the heat further and simmer gently for another half hour, stirring regularly. Be careful not to burn anything.

While this is happening, lightly fry the mushrooms with the soy sauce.

When everything is ready, stir the spinach and mushrooms through the congee and give it a minute or two for the greens to wilt. 

Serve in bowls, garnished with garlic oil and fried shallots.

Brussels sprout & spring onion oil noodles

May 27,  2024

   

We're still revelling in the fresh noodles and rice cakes available at our local Korean grocery! I had some noodles left over from another dish and picked out this Tenderheart recipe to make use of them. I was keen to use Brussels sprouts again ('tis the season!) and also liked that the dish was spiked with black vinegar.

Finely shredded Brussels sprouts and spring onion get cooked in lots of oil until they're golden and crispy, and there's supposed to be a lot of oil left over afterwards. I didn't find that to be the case - I think I set the heat too low for the first 15-20 minutes, such that the vegetables didn't change colour much and soaked up a lot of the oil. I'm finding that some of McKinnon's recipes are lighter on the seasonings than I prefer, so I'll also use a heavier hand on the tamari and black vinegar when I make this again.

A dish with such a simple ingredient list really benefits from the special texture of those fresh noodles. Crisp-fried veges add a neat textural contrast, and I went to the trouble of grilling the leftover vegetables to keep it up.

Brussels sprout & spring onion oil noodles

(slightly adapted from Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart)

3/4 cup neutral oil

8 spring onions, finely julienned

250g Brussels sprouts, trimmed and finely sliced

450g noodles

4 tablespoons tamari

3 teaspoons white sugar

1 teaspoon black vinegar

Place the oil, spring onions and sprouts in a large saucepan or frying pan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions and sprouts are golden and crispy, up to 30 minutes. I had to keep an eye on mine and adjust the heat along the way to get them cooking fast enough to brown but not so fast that they burned. When they're ready, pour the mixture through a sieve, so that you can catch the oil and keep the vegetables crispy.

Bring a different large saucepan of water to the boil, and cook the noodles according to their instructions. Drain them.

Add the tamari, sugar and vinegar to the drained oil and whisk them together. Toss the noodles with the flavoured oil (choosing the oil quantity to suit your taste), then serve the noodles topped with the crispy vegetables.

Brother Bon V

May 1 & 24, 2024

   

The quality of these photos is poor, but it's been over a year since I last mentioned how fond I am of Brother Bon and I think we all need the reminder. Brother Bon is very nearly on the path I cycle between home and my workplace, and a couple of times lately I've stopped in for a convenient and tasty dinner on my way home. The menu set-up is currently very elaborate - a double-sided placemat-sized sheet of the standard menu, a flip-book of drinks, a smaller dessert menu, and a page of specials. Just dozens of things to choose from, and all of them vegan!

The plate above is the broken rice ($27), one of those lovely sampler meals where you can create a new flavour combination with every mouthful. The mound of broken rice is topped with a fried mock-egg, there's some magnificent marinated and charred chicken, a varied vermicelli mix, a complex nuoc mam to spread all around, and a trail of refreshing tomato and cucumber slices.

   

A couple of weeks later I was seeking something relatively small, and was very satisfied by the dragon roll special ($21). So much is packed into these sushi pieces! Mock chicken and fresh vegetables are artfully rolled in nori and sushi rice, tiled with avocado, squirted with sriracha mayo, sprinkled with sesame seeds and fried shallots, then served alongside the usual soy sauce, pickled ginger and wasabi.

I hope my descriptions will appetise you more than my photos might put you off - Brother Bon has so many fun vegan dishes to offer! I also noticed on one of these visits that they offer the opportunity to buy someone in need a meal, with the docket pinned to a board that's visible from the door. I hope by now that someone else has enjoyed the second broken rice plate I bought as much as I enjoyed the first one.

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You can read about one, two, three and four of our previous visits to Brother Bon. Since that last post it's also received praise from That Vegan Dad.

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Brother Bon 

377-379 High St, Northcote 

9077 1335 

https://www.brotherbon.com.au/

Accessibility: The entry is flat and tables are moderately spaced. Most tables are low and paired with backed chairs; there are also high benches along the front window with backless stools. I ordered at my table and paid at a low-ish counter. Toilets are individual non-gendered cubicles with a shared sink space. A cubicle I have used included menstrual product disposal, and another one was marked for both wheelchair access and a baby change station.

Tyranny of Distance

May 17, 2024

   

We popped down to the Astor to see the new Bluebottle Kiss documentary and needed some dinner on the way. The Happy Cow guide showed that Tyranny of Distance was close by and all-vegan so we booked ourselves a table.

It turns out that Tyranny of Distance has been operating for over a decade (see blog links at the bottom of the post), although it's more like five years since it went vegan. The atmosphere and menu reminded me of past days at the Gasometer, with rambling rooms, uneven and richly coloured walls, mismatched wooden furniture and a mostly fried, mock meat-heavy menu. Tyranny has an extended semi-outdoors area so I imagine it's much brighter in summer.

   

We got started with sober mojitos ($12). 

   

For his main, Michael chose the Korean bao sliders ($21). The steamed buns were unexpectedly charcoal-coloured, then stuffed with a gochujang-marinated 'pork belly' that he liked a lot, plus shredded cabbage, peanuts and spicy mayo dripping everywhere. It was a smaller meal and thankfully he had the appetite to help me out with mine!

   

This is the enormous chicken ciabatta ($23). The bread is house-made and layered with a thick mock-chicken in a seasoned batter, lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado, aioli, chipotle mayo and cheese. Both the bread and the chicken are very hearty specimens, a lot for me to take on all at once. The burger is also tall! I carefully used a serrated knife to halve it, and divide again to share with Michael. It was a mess, but a tasty one. The side of chips was great, albeit sauceless.

Across the menu there are more burgers, a couple of curries, nachos and roti rolls two ways (sweet soy duck and butter chicken!). Service was friendly and capable. While I might not cross town especially for Tyranny of Distance, I'd definitely book in a meal there any time I'm visiting the Astor.

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You can read old, positive reviews of Tyranny's pre-vegan menu on Eat & Be Merry and The Chommery. The more recent vegan menu has received praise from gastrology.

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Tyranny of Distance

147 Union St, Windsor

9525 1005

shared dishes, mains

https://tyrannyofdistance.com.au/

Accessibility: There are a couple steps up at the beer garden entry. Furniture is a mixture of high and low tables outside, and low tables inside with a corresponding mixture of backless benches, stools, backed chairs and booth seats. They're all arranged densely with meandering walkways and the odd step through the building. We ordered at our table and paid at a high counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Roti Road

April 29, 2024

   

Michael subbed into a friend's netball game in Footscray on a Monday night. I wouldn't usually follow along, but he had the idea of grabbing some dinner in the neighbourhood afterwards and I checked our prospects for finding something good after 8pm on a Monday. I was excited to find out that Roti Road would likely serve us - I've had them bookmarked for a decade! Indeed, they were not only open but positively buzzing, and we had no worries of them packing up chairs and mopping floors around us as we ate.

   

In waiting so long to visit Roti Road, we've allowed them time to work up to a dedicated two-page vegan menu! There's a variety of noodles (mostly fried but also in soup), rice-based dishes, vegetable-centred dishes, mock meats and sides. Michael's curry lamb ($25.90) arrived long before the rest of our meal - he liked its spiciness, less so its (accurate) chewiness.

   

True to its Malaysian roots, Roti Road has an extensive non-alcoholic drinks menu. My Traditional 3 Color Milk Tea ($5.90) was just barely triple-toned and not as intensely flavoured as I'd hoped for. Michael needed to rehydrate with an orange-apple juice ($4).

   

Our roti made it eventually, scrunched up and crispy-edged. Michael just had plain one ($7.50) while I went for Roti Canai ($9.50), knowing that the sambal wouldn't be veg-friendly (big points for the clear labelling here!). I loved the dhal but the curry was too spicy for me (again, I was fairly warned by the menu labels!) and most of it was soaked up by Michael.

Service was fast and capable and really, we were just so happy that they were offering full service at the later end of a Monday night. I'd absolutely stop in for another roti, and would be curious to try some of their other dishes (CKT, nasi goreng, plum mock-duck) when I'm able to take my time over a larger meal.

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There are blog reviews of Roti Road stretching across a decade! Positive accounts can be found on Footscray Food Blog, Spoonfuls of Wanderlust, Melbourne Food Baby, grazing panda, Eat & Be Merry, Purple Bowl, halal culinary adventures (twice) and Mamma Knows West. Views on Consider the Sauce diminished over time, and The Tall and Short of It were entirely unimpressed.

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Roti Road

189/193 Barkly St, Footscray

9078 8878 

roti, vegan p1, vegan p2, drinks p1, drinks p2, desserts

https://www.rotiroad.com.au/

Accessibility: Roti Road has a wide, flat entry and wide walkways through its dining area. Furniture is densely arranged, mostly low height with booths and backed chairs (the tall tables have backed stools too). We ordered at our table and paid at a high counter.

Cascatelli with mushroom ragu

 April 27, 2024

   

Cindy's been a regular listener to The Sporkful for years now and followed along with Dan Pashman's quest to make the optimal pasta shape. This resulted in cascatelli, now widely available in the US. The full story of cascatelli's development and production are worth your time (see: here), it's a pretty fun project with an impressively successful outcome.

   

We had a food-loving pal going on holidays to the States, and Cindy convinced him to buy us a box of cascatelli so we could try it ourselves. We trusted Pashman to come up with the best recipes to show off his own shape, so once we had the precious box in our hands, we tackled this mushroom ragu recipe to try it out.

   

First, the pasta! I actually think Pashman has done a really good job with this shape - it's got a kind of sturdiness to it that I like and it really does hold the sauce very well. It's a ludicrous thing to have to ship it in from the US, but if it was available in our supermarkets I'd buy it pretty often. 

   

Even better than the pasta though was this mushroom ragu recipe - it's so impressive, rich and hearty and genuinely bursting with mushroom flavour. There's a reasonable amount of faffing around involved, but it's definitely one that will move into our long weekend slow cooking roster in future. Both the pasta and the sauce held up really well as leftovers too, I was really sad when we finally got through them all.

Cascatelli with mushroom ragu

(from this recipe by Dan Pashman from The Sporkful)

20g dried porcini mushrooms (20g)

2-3 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

~1.5kg mixed mushrooms (we used Swiss brown, oyster, king trumpet and portobello)

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 tablespoons thyme leaves

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

1/2 cup white wine

1 cup mock chicken stock

1 box cascatelli (or equivalent pasta)

1/2 cup creme fraiche

1/2 cup grated pecorino

1/4 cup chopped parsley

2 large shallots, peeled and chopped

1 leek, sliced finely (white parts only)

3 cloves garlic, minced

Soak the dried porcinis in about 1 cup of hot water for about half an hour. Drain through a fine filter and reserve the broth. Chop the porcinis into bite sized pieces.

Melt some of the butter and olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat and saute the mushrooms in batches for 3-4 minutes per batch, seasoned with salt and pepper - top up the butter and oil as necessary until you've got all the mushrooms fried up. Set aside the mushrooms along with their juices.

Add more butter and oil to the pan and then fry the leek and shallots over medium heat until they've softened, throw in the garlic for another couple of minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for a couple of minutes and then stir through the thyme and chilli flakes. 

Stir in the mushrooms and the wine and cook for a while, until the wine has reduced by about one-third. Add in the stock and half the porcini water and simmer for about 5 minutes. Taste for seasoning and keep simmering if the mixture is still too watery. 

Meanwhile, cook the cascatelli (or alternative pasta) as per instructions, reserving some of the cooking water. 

Toss the cooked pasta with the mushroom mix and stir through the creme fraiche and half a cup of pasta water (or more if you need a more liquid-y sauce). Stir in the pecorino and most of the parsley and add more salt and pepper if required. Serve, topped with a bit of extra cheese and parsley.

Nib & peel biscuits

 April 27, 2024

   

I've barely been baking this year, but autumn often gets me in the mood for it. My inspiration to take on this recipe was a very marked-down packet of cocoa nibs I picked up from Terra Madre. My one strong memory of baking with nibs before was in this biscuit recipe where they're paired with candied citrus peel - I blogged about it back in 2007 (!) but didn't publish the recipe so I'm here to redress that oversight today.

The biscuits have very simple, classic ingredients - they come out quite crisp and toasty, with a bit of chewiness at the centre. They're not a thick, pillowy cookie. I like that the cocoa nibs are flinty and barely sweet as a contrast to the soft and sugary peel.

Nib & peel biscuits

(very slightly adapted from a recipe from Cook (almost) Anything)

125g butter, softened

200g caster sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

200g plain flour

40g sweetened citrus peel, finely diced

1 teaspoon baking powder

40g roasted cocoa nibs

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line 1-2 baking trays with paper.

Thoroughly beat together the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until combined. In a separate small bowl, stir a tablespoon of the flour together with the citrus peel to manage its stickiness and prevent it from clumping. Sift the remaining flour and baking powder into the butter mixture and mix until almost combined. Add the cocoa nibs and citrus peel, stirring until just combined.

Place generous, well-spaced tablespoons of the mixture onto the baking tray(s) and bake for around 10 minutes, until just browning around the edges. Allow them to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring them elsewhere.

Ima Asa Yoru II

April 26, 2024

   

It's hard to understate how taken were with our first visit to Ima Asa Yoru. Within little more than a month we returned for lunch, missed out on a table and grabbed some tasty takeaway from their bustling pantry, and booked ourselves in for dinner on a Friday night.

   

I would've loved to try their cocktail menu but I was feeling migraine-adjacent and satisfied myself with a yuzu and ginger soda ($8.50). Michael did Friday night right with a green apple whiskey ($20).

   

The night menu is split into cold and hot dishes, with plenty of vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free dishes clearly marked across the list. We covered most of the vegetarian ones, starting with a tsukemono (pickle) plate ($13) and melt-in-the-mouth eggplant agebidashi with refreshing daikon oroshi and ginger ($18).

   

The blooming onion ($16) was an unexpected and memorable option! It's served with a dainty mayonnaise and mustard, and actually well-handled with chopsticks.

   

The mixed mushrooms ($17) were more squarely within our expectations (in the best possible way): carefully cooked to preserve their varied textures with soy, spring onion oil and lemon zest, then showered with shredded nori.

   

I was excited for the chawanmushi ($21), an egg custard served with wood roasted heirloom tomatoes and pangrattato. It's garnished with their excellent chilli crisp, which is a complementary choice that's just too spicy for me to handle; all the more for Michael!

   

They absolutely redeemed themselves with their chocolate nemesis cake ($17), a dense and fudgy dessert that we happily split between the two of us. The cream had to be spooned separately to detect the promised yuzu.

Dinner at Ima Asa Yoru was a slightly more mixed experience for me than breakfast, but that's more a matter of my taste than any shortfalls on their part. The food is consistently made with care and flair.

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You can read about our first visit to Ima Asa Yoru here.

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Ima Asa Yoru

1 Duckett St, Brunswick

9989 2309

night menu, non-alcoholic drinks, alcoholic drinks

https://www.imaproject.co/

Accessibility: Entry to Ima Asa Yoru includes shallow, wide ramps. Furniture is densely packed, made up of low tables with backed chairs and high benches with backed and backless stools (I find it difficult to comfortably use the footrest). We ordered at our table and paid at a low open counter. We didn't visit the toilets.

Kariton Sorbetes

April 21, 2024

   

We squeezed a visit to Kariton Sorbetes between our last two comedy shows and it might have been the highlight of my night! I've been eyeing off their Filipino-flavoured gelato for a few years, reading the complimentary reviews, and made one failed attempt to visit their original Footscray venue before this successful sample of their newer Chinatown shopfront.

Their menu is in regular rotation and we hadn't pinned our hopes on trying any particular famous flavours. Michael took the creamy, chocolatey approach, ordering a cone ($8.70) with Tita-misu (coconut mascarpone gelato, coconut sponge fingers, Vietnamese coffee caramel and chocolate soil) and Milo Dinosaur (Milo gelato, malted milk chocolate ganache, Milo honeycomb).

   

Meanwhile, I had a cup ($8.70) stacked with Brazo de Mercedes (toasted marshmallow gelato, mandarin-yuzu sorbet) and TMT (Thai milk tea gelato, coconut milk crumb, coconut sugo jelly). I'm not generally a marshmallow gal, but its tangy citrus counterpart was the balance it needed.

We thought all four flavours were absolutely brilliant! I'd like very much to go back when I have the time and appetite to make my way through a Taho or Halo Halo.

We didn't notice clear dietary information on site but there's some online, so vegans and coeliacs might be best off doing a little research in advance. We reckon it'll be worth the effort.

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Kariton Sorbetes

177 Russell St, Melbourne CBD

menu: one, two

https://www.karitonsorbetes.com/

Accessibility: Kariton Sorbetes has a flat entry and somewhat narrow, roped queuing system. There are few seats, mostly low backless stools. We ordered, paid, and picked up our icecreams at a low counter. We didn't visit the toilets.