If you’re good at chopping vegetables, this dish is a doddle. Even if you’re a little bit slower with the knife it’s still worth the effort. We find it an easy way to boost our fish intake, and it’s sophisticated enough to put on a dinner party menu.
Because salmon has quite a strong flavour, it’s good to have something a little bit hearty with it. The bed of puy lentils, diced vegetables and herbs does the job. Continue reading ‘Salmon on a bed of puy lentils’
While it’s nice to experiment in the kitchen and try exciting and slightly scary things like soufflé and partridge, it’s equally nice to build up a stock of really easy, favourite recipes that you can cook any day of the week. You know, the kind of recipes you don’t even a shopping list for, because the list of ingredients is in your head.
This fish pie recipe is like that for me. It’s fairly quick, easy, tasty and you can substitute different kinds of seafood or vegetables, depending on what you’ve got in the fridge or what’s available at the fishmonger (or, let’s face it, the supermarket). Continue reading ‘No-fuss fish pie’
We reckon you can’t love Thai food without loving pad thai - the country’s national dish. Your average Thai cook can probably whip this up with a few swishes of the wok and flips of the, umm, wok flipper. But for us at home there are two pitfalls that are easy to, errm, fall into. As you’ll find out in this episode.
First thing is those rice noodles (and don’t ever get taken for a ride in a restaurant - unless these particular noodles are under your nose, you’re not eating pad thai). You usually buy the dried variety in a packet. They need to be soaked in warm water before going into the wok. But soaked for how long? You’ve just come to a trap for young players. Continue reading ‘Pad thai with two tries’
King of curry Atul Kochhar had his meen molee published in Observer Food Monthly a while back - and we had the chance to crash-test the recipe.
Meen molee is a coconut fish curry, with green chillies providing the kick. Lenny elected to fillet the fish herself, as a chance to show off her flash filleting knife. We kept the wreckage for our slow cooker dabbling and made a decent fish stock. Don’t feel that you’re punking out if you just buy ordinary fillets or get the fishmonger to do it. Continue reading ‘Good golly fish curry’
This episode our London-based mate Phil shows us how to make real French fries - so real, in fact, they’re actually Belgian. And his wife Michelle, a genuine chef, chips in (pun for Anglo-Anzac readers) with a tasty and simple egg mayonnaise, plus the mussels that go into a traditional Belgian “moules and frites” feast.
Phil and Michelle know their way around Belgium and its cuisine. Phil is a particular specialist at locating obscure monasteries that run breweries on the side, where the monks only sell their beer to people who show up at the door, and only in bulk.
Our household effects recently arrived from Canada and in one of the boxes was a DVD containing raw footage of a previously unseen CTK instalment, filmed back in Edmonton earlier this year.
I had gone shopping on my way home from work and grabbed a few random things in the supermarket, hoping that Lenny would be able to make sense of it all, culinary whiz that she is. But I’d forgotten she was off playing volleyball and I was to be left to my own devices in the kitchen.
Just what I was aiming for, I’m not sure, but it all ended pretty miserably, especially for the two pieces of cod that had the misfortune to be plucked from the supermarket chiller cabinet by my maladroit hands that evening. Continue reading ‘The lost cod episode’
If Prince Edward Island is famous for one thing, it just might be lobster suppers. These seafood feasts typically start with courses of chowder and mussels. Then the diner is presented with a whole lobster to devour. This instalment begins with us doing just that to two unfortunate specimens.
Lenny loves mussels, so was inspired by the mussel course to attempt her own version of the dish for this episode. She adds a Thai twist with coconut milk, ginger and limes. But hang on, Jalapeno chilies? What the …? Well, authentic Thai-style ingredients aren’t always close at hand. Continue reading ‘Lobster and mussels, alive, alive-o’
We first had “fun rolls” (Vietnamese spring rolls) at The Vietnamese restaurant in Brisbane, where they bring the ingredients to your table and you make the tasty little parcels yourself - sharing a platter with your friends and inevitably getting a good giggle out of someone’s disastrous wrapping efforts. Continue reading ‘The fun rolls on!’
The supermarket was having a special on frozen jumbo prawns, de-veined and in a split shell. Standing there in the aisle, I had a vague recollection of a vermicelli noodle salad with a chili lime sauce.
We’d made it a few times, so I just grabbed the ingredients I could bring to mind, headed home and threw them at Lenny (who promptly threw them back at me).
This was actually the first cooking video we shot (you can tell by the amount of “Uhh, umm, aah” coming from my mouth - it seems Lenny is the natural presenter out of us two). Continue reading ‘Don’t come the raw prawn’
I am going to open a French-themed seafood restaurant called The Poisson Chalice. Har Har. - Waz 2010/07/07
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About us
We're Waz and Lenny, a couple of foodies with a video camera. We're not chefs, and you won't find any of that "here's one we prepared earlier" fakery here - we make mistakes, and the failures get posted along with the success stories. CTK is a podcast and video blog (vlog) rolled into one.
Windows video (small)
mp4 video (small)
Let the jelly roll: Swiss roll recipe from Waz’s Nana
Duck in for Christmas
Our roast chicken recipe: hot and fast
No-fuss fish pie
Classic bolognese
Portuguese custard tarts (pasteis de nata)
About the soufflé
One chicken, three ways
Bones about it: Beef stock from scratch
Heart-melting chocolate pudding
Joy of tarte tatin
Your sausage habits exposed
These pretzels are making us … feisty!
We’re on a (cabbage) roll
A crow-eater gives us curry