This week, Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen is celebrating Weekend Herb Blogging’s Two Year Anniversary with a bit of a splash. Expect a great collection of vegetable/herb recipes, and also a contest to find our favourite herb and vegetable for 2007. My money is on basil and zucchini; they are both incredibly versatile, easily obtained and of course, delicious.

Having said that, my contribution this week doesn’t feature either of those ingredients. Instead, it’s a light and tangy cucumber yogurt sauce which I slathered over a crisp filo parcel of fish. To make the fish parcel, I buttered some filo sheets and used it to wrap up a few portions of fish that had been seasoned and brushed with an Indian curry paste. I love using filo because it’s one way of adding interest to your dish without it being overly unhealthy (unlike using puff pastry, for example). Also, the parcel steams the fish a little, so the result is a moist and tender piece of fish in a puffy, crispy shell, cooked in a virtually foolproof way.

On to the sauce, which really doesn’t require a recipe. All you need to do is add coarsely grated cucumber to some European style/Greek yogurt (or traditional yogurt, according to preference), season well and finish with a combination of freshly chopped herbs of your choice. I used a selection from the pots of herbs on my balcony : mint, chives and flat leaf parsley.

The mint I grow is actually chocolate mint, which does taste remarkably like an after-dinner mint, and is often recommended to be used in chocolate desserts or in tea. It is however not so strong that it can’t be used in savoury cooking as well. It’s a hardy herb that grows like wildfire (the word “invasive” pops up often when describing mint; I stuck a little branch containing a small root from the original pot, into a new one to see if it would grow and it did!). Unfortunately there’s also some chocoholic bug on the balcony that I haven’t managed to catch yet, that seems to love eating the mint exclusively. This is despite mint in general, having supposedly natural insecticide properties.

While I haven’t tried growing it, the cucumber is one vegetable I nearly always have in the fridge. I love them in sandwiches and as a plain, cooling accompaniment to hot curries or rich food. I have previously also used cucumber in this recipe.

Happy 2 years of WHB, Kalyn!

I know people who would say outright, how much they hate Matthew Evans; that he’s a complete dickhett. I’ve never met him, but I actually quite like him, based on what I’ve read by him. For a long time, I loved his recipe columns because of the simplicity and enthusiasm he brought to the dishes he featured. I must admit, I also did use to eagerly await the release of his reviews in Good Living every week, back when he was a restaurant critic for the SMH (a position previously held by Terry Durrack, whose writing I loved even more).

B got me a copy of Evans’ latest book, Never Order Chicken On a Monday, as a surprise gift. The cover of the book has a sticker on it calling it “Australia’s answer to Kitchen Confidential”. Something about that made me really cringe. If I saw that book in the store, not knowing who had written it, and saw the sticker, I probably would have immediately backed away from it. Statements like that tend to set you up for a whole lot of disappointment. Besides, who wants to read another Kitchen Confidential?

That said, I can actually relate to a certain degree, to some of the stuff he experienced while he was an apprentice, and some of the things he observed or tolerated in certain kitchens – this is coming from someone who started cooking at least ten years or more after he did. It seems completely crazy that dodgy practices are still going on today. A friend once spent a day at a place where they were frying up chips that were actually slimy and going off. She tried to toss them into the bin and got shouted at by the chef for throwing food away. The agency chefs we get occasionally into our kitchen to help out, always tell us how much they love working with us because they’ve seen so many dirty kitchens and bad food in their travels around Sydney.

But back to the book, which in theory, I should love to bits. Matthew Evans is a pretty good writer and he’s writing about an industry I’m in and love reading about. I totally agree with him regarding bottled water in restaurants and eating out on Valentine’s Day, but not so much about things like being rude in Chinese restaurants.

There is also something in the tone of the book throughout that seems a bit defensive to me – excepting the pages where he talks about his childhood (I loved the story about how he cooked up faked vomit so that he could skip school for a day). I’m also getting a bit bored of reading about how mentally deficient, maniacal, alcoholic and drug-crazed a lot of cooks are. Sure, it’s probably true and still shocking to hear, but judging from a discussion I had today with some doctor friends, there seem to be just as many crazy people working in hospitals, doing extremely long shifts.

While he certainly has experienced a lot in his life (and you can’t help but respect him for that, and for his passion and persistence), in terms of writing, I found a lot of repetition in the book, like Spak-Filla particularly in the earlier chapters. In the end, nothing really new is said about the restaurant industry, let alone the Sydney/Australian one, and the book ends up being quite entertaining, but not as good as I expected it to be.

It’s not the best looking sweet treat in the world, but I wanted to post this picture of a cupcake I made several months ago, to support Pink Ribbon Day on Monday the 22nd of October 2007, and breast cancer awareness month. Minko at ECupcake has invited everyone to make a pink dish for this day, so you can check her site from the 16th onwards to see what other pink themed dishes people have come up with. To further support Pink Ribbon Day, you can also make a donation or buy Pink Day related merchandise during this month. Money raised will go to the Cancer Council which helps support women with breast cancer and assists in research.

This pink buttercream frosting from Magnolia Bakery is terrific because it tastes so light and is not too sweet (when I make frosting, I usually tailor it by using as little sugar as possible, because they are often too sweet for my tastes) :

225g unsalted butter, very soft
8 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup milk

Place the butter in a large bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk. Beat until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, until icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency (you may very well not need all of the sugar).

Add a few drops of red or pink food coloring and mix thoroughly. Use straight away or keep at room temperature until needed.