Welcome to The Kitchen Playground. Cooking can bring great joy and great despair. I hope that the recipes you find here, many of which are very quick to make with the weeknight in mind, help you to experience more joy than despair. Many recipes have instructions for the Thermomix 31 as well as traditional instructions. The emphasis is on real, fresh food that combines flavour, texture and scent to delight the senses.
Well it has been awhile. It feels like the blink of an eye but it is almost three years since I last posted. That’s life in the fast lane for you. Working full time (and then some), running a household, raising a couple of teenager/almost teenager beasties and study leaves very little time for blogging. […]
I greeted Friday evening with a much greater sigh of relief than is usual this week. It hasn’t been a bad week, just a busy one. Plus it was the Bread Winner’s birthday and I’d had to stand him up for lunch which I felt dreadful about. Such is the crazy world of education. All […]
This is a thermomix adaptation of Luke Nguyen’s recipe from The Food of Vietnam. Quy Nhon Fishcakes Ingredients 1 tablespoon fish sauce 2 skinless white fish fillets salt and pepper 1/4 teaspoon sesame oil 1 clove garlic, peeled 5 spring onions, white part only, reserve green and slice thinly to serve 3 tablespoons sesame oil […]
A brief hiatus in the kitchen from Vietnamese flavours. This is absolutely delicious and incredibly messy to eat. Particularly for those who are bearded. I have adapted a recipe found in an airplane magazine, apparently the original is from Cantina by Paul Wilson. I served this accompanied by skate which had been smeared in ground […]
This is technically as Chinese inspired as it is Vietnamese. Either way it is low prep, delicious and fun for the kids who like any dish where they compile their own servings. Mini Pork Buns. Ingredients. 1 packet frozen spring roll buns (from Asian grocers) 500g piece pork neck Char siu sauce 2 spring onions […]
Quick and delicious on a hot night. Chicken & Green Papaya Salad Ingredients 1 green papaya 1 tblsp Phu Quoc fish sauce 3 chicken thigh fillets 1 spring onion, sliced thinly fried shallots, sliced chilli and crushed peanuts to garnish Method 1. Peel and julienne the green papaya and toss fish sauce and spring onion […]
This meal was born of necessity as I the only fruit or vegetables I had was that which was growing in the garden. Chicken and Herb Salad. Ingredients 3 chicken thigh breasts chopped into bite sized pieces 1 cup Vietnamese mint leaves 1 cup parsley sprigs 1 cup mint leaves 1/4 cup chopped chives 3 spring […]
Betel leaves are lovely and fragrant and can be bought at Asian Grocers. They are often used as an edible wrap in Vietnamese cooking. Pork in Betel Leaves Ingredients 250g pork mince 1 chilli, seeded and finely chopped 1 stem of lemongrass, white part finely chopped 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped 1 shallot, finely chopped […]
We spent January travelling through Vietnam. We began our adventure in Hanoi, took a day trip to Ha Long Bay and then traveled to Danang, Hoi An, Nha Trang, Can Tho, Phu Quoc and Ho Chi Minh City. The food was a major focus of our trip. It differed from region to region and the […]
I’m not a Halloween kind of girl. To be honest it just doesn’t make sense to me in the southern hemisphere. My Celtic roots get me all hung up on the end of harvest concept and kids eating that much junk food right before bedtime isn’t exactly my cup of tea either. The street we’re […]