Pasta AND Tuna.... can a dish get any tastier?

As much as I hate the idea of eating far too many large fish... I keep the odd can or two of 'dophin-friendly' (whatever that's supposed to mean) and Choice-selected 400g tins of Tuna in my cupboard for such a day as Sunday.

Sunday I worked in the garden. It was a big day.  My family watched telly and played with the dog.  I reclaimed a small parcel of land that had begun environmental warfare on my original plan.  At the end of the long day... I was buggered. (That's 'tired' in Austalian slang in case you had just arched your eyebrows considerably).

This is not quite the meal that cooks itself, but it comes close.  I once followed a recipe I had copied from our local pre-school.  I ate with the children a few times in a previous life, and really enjoyed this Tuesday and Friday lunch meal, or something close to this.  The recipe disappeared a long time ago, but the tastes remain memorable:  

So from memory, the ingredients consist of the following:

Pasta or Rice - whichever gluten or gluten-free lifestyle you and/or your family are adhering to.
400g can of tuna (drained)
400g can of any of the following SOUPS (Chicken, Cream of Chicken, Asparagus or Celery)
bunch of fresh asparagus (or a canned/drained)
1 or 2 tomatoes
1 onion

Fresh breadcrumbs & grated cheese for the topping

STEP ONE:

Cook the pasta or rice.

STEP TWO:

Turn the oven on to 180/350;

STEP THREE: 

Pull out a skillet and gently fry up the onion, asparagus and tomato - gently - just to take the crunch and sting out of the onion.  Turn it off.

STEP FOUR:

While the vegies are softening, tip the canned soup and drained tuna into a casserole dish.

STEP FIVE:

Add the vegies to the casserole dish with the soup and tuna

STEP SIX:

Add the pasta or rice to the casserole dish, fold it all together until it's mixed:  Don't have all the soup in one gluggy bit in the middle and the tuna staying in a corner on the other side of the vegetables.  So I guess I should have said, make sure your casserole dish will hold a fair whack of tuna casserole.

THE TOPPING:

Throw 2 pieces of fresh bread into a food processor and process till it look .... like breadcrumbs!  Add 1/2 to 1 cup of grated cheese.  Mix it all together, spread it out on top of the casserole.  Make it look pretty with either some paprika or chilli.  Whatever your tastebuds desire

Bake for 20 minutes covered, then another 10 minutes uncovered with the temperature up a few notches to make the topping crunchy.

Leave the casserole out of the over for 5 to 10 minutes to cool down before eating it.  Yum!  My family give this a 9/10.  The reason it's not 10 is because while I'm cooking it, everyone is convinced they're not fond of tuna... then they eat it.






Should have had a photo here of it out of the oven... hot and sumptuous.  But we ate it instead.

Let's make Laksa. Or at least give it a go

If Asian food seems exotic - and therefore difficult - I felt the same way!! Until Laksa paste turned up on Supermarket shelves.  There are 3 I use and no, I'm not getting paid to say that.

The best (and cheapest) is almost always out of stock.  If I find it, I buy 2.  If it's on special, I buy all of them.  It's this stuff:

Everything in one simple packet and generally under $2.

Option 2 is this:  a tad more pricey at about $3.50

followed closely by option 3:   even more pricey, which is starting to seem silly.

 all the rest of the pastes are much of a muchness unless you start to think about making your own.  Which is something I'll look at in about 10 more years.

Ultimately what you need to know is that all of these pastes require some stock and some coconut cream as the secret added ingredients.

What you need:     

YOU NEED TO FIGURE OUT IF YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE A SEAFOOD, CHICKEN, MEAT OR VEGI LAKSA.  

I'm doing a Chicken Laksa:  So I need some Chicken stock - I'm just as happy to use Stock Cubes or one of those 1 litre Pantry Packs of Stock, but as I have the Chicken pieces - and the time, I may as well make it.  The stock is not the stock to write home to mother about, it's a means to an end:

I put 1kilo of Chicken Legs (Free Range, Happy-Living Legs from Happy-Living Chickens) into 6 cups of water with some salt, bay leaves, oregano, pepper and fennel seeds. Bring the whole lot to the boil with the lid on, then turn down, put the lid half on/half off and simmer for half an hour.  REAL stock is so much more than this... but it'll do, and it's easy.

 

You may as well make a cup of espresso at the same time.  I generally do.

Turn the heat off after 30 minutes and let it sit there for a while.  That's your stock, together with your chicken pieces.  Gather the rest of the stuff you need:

Laksa Paste (see above)

1 Can of coconut milk (or coconut cream, if you're feeling gluttonous and reckless)

Either Vermicelli noodles, or instant noodles or even some other rice noodles, but vermicelli is along the path of least resistance...

Oil & Onion

500g - 1 kilo Meat, Vegies, Chicken, Prawns... whichever.  I use Chicken legs AND any vegies I have around

2 cups of Stock

Bean Sprouts & Coriander

It's a shame you can't buy a few Bean Sprouts.  I have found small cans perfect for this dish, but not often.  I'm generally left with buying a 2 kilo bag of them (and really, nobody purposely eats that many bean sprouts) or a 400g can of them - same problem just not as large.  I tried omitting them altogether, but these simple things are essential for this dish.  Essential.

Firstly - do your noodles:  Grab about 200g (or more..) of vermicelli noodles, squish them into a heat proof (preferably glass) container big enough to hold them if they double in size.  Pour boiling water over them to cover, cover the dish with whatever you can that's also heat proof and leave it while you cook dinner.   5 -10 minutes should be plenty, but if you don't like how the noodles are after 5 minutes, adjust the time to your taste

                                                             (You don't really need to cover it either)

I'm going to put some vegies into the mix because I've got some vegies running the gauntlet at the bottom of the fridge, so... I chopped them up with an onion and added all these vegies (horrors! at the same time) to a wok with lots of Grapeseed Oil (it burns at a higher temperature).

 

I played with this for about 3 or 4 minutes, then added some frozen peas, corn & carrots because there just wasn't enough colour in the mix.  Almost immediately, I added the Laksa Paste and stirred it around at a bit of a high temp until the smell went from "You've got to be kidding me?" to, "Oh, I see where this is going...."

I gave it a few more minutes of aroma mingling and then added an entire can of Coconut Cream, stirring that around for a good minute and a half, I turned the heat down a bit.

  

Then I took the lid off the chicken stock right next to the wok on the stove and took out each piece of chicken and added it to the Laksa mix.

 Once they had all been added, I picked up the pot of Chicken Stock and added enough of the stock until I was happy with the contents of the Laksa pot (maybe about 1 and a half cups). 

 The rest of the stock can be used for all sorts of things later - but that's another blog.

 then this quickly transforms to a richer orange colour that transforms your whole house into an South Sea vacation



Leave it just long enough for the meat to drop off the bones. Considering it has been cooked while making the stock, it wont take long..

The Laksa is mostly cooked.  Leave it to simmer for about 3 minutes.  This is not a meal to be cooked for hours.  It should all be done in about 15 minutes if you're not making stock.  Which is why you should prepare the vermicelli early in the piece.

 

Now that serendipitous moment when the noodles are ready, the laksa is cooked, you have chopped up some coriander, found the elusive perfect amount of beansprouts (or found 15 more recipes calling for them), and you also slivered off some slices of spring onion/shallot you just discovered in your garden and it's time to put it all together:

First:  drain the noodles, and leave them draining over a bowl while you dish out the required amount into everyone's bowl.

Then add a couple of chicken drumsticks, followed by a few ladles of the yummy soupy laksa stuff

Then throw in a pinch of shallots,

followed by a handful of bean sprouts

and topped off with as much coriander as your little heart desires.

Done

It was delicious, even though this Laksa - being Malaysian Laksa Paste (like I knew there was a difference) is substantially hotter than Thai Laksa Paste.....

Cooking's sometimes hard enough, but do I have to wash up also?

The short answer is yes... unless we use banana leaves to serve and eat with our fingers and stir with sticks (not really a bad idea...)

but we can keep the cookware down, which often includes the grottiest implements to wash.

ONE POT WONDERS

Roast Chicken and Char-Grilled Vegetables. 

Bake the whole thing in one pot!!  

This is also a good pantry dinner (not much from the fridge)

Turn the oven on to about 180/350.

Throw together 6 slices of bread (cut off crusts and cut into little squares); a jar of roasted char-grilled vegies (drained), one shredded BBQ chicken and some spinach leaves.  Stir it together IN the dish you're going to cook it in, you don't have to go overboard, just so the chicken isn't all on one side and the spinach wont turn into a black mess in the corner.

Whisk up 6 eggs with about 1 and a bit cups of milk and pour it over the chicken/vegie mix.  Leave it to swoon a bit while you tidy up the little tiny mess in the kitchen.

Grate some cheese over the top of the goodies in the dish and place it in the oven in order for it to consider how it can warm the cockles of your heart.  You should give it at least 35 minutes thinking time.

The bread becomes golden when it comes up with an idea and miraculously the eggs set at about the same time.

Eat it!!  Sometimes it looks like this - but the bottom of the dish couldn't possibly be this clean if you've just taken out a slice.  If it is, all power to you - your washing up is going to be even more minimal.  If it's not, it's because you just BAKED in it, which is how things should be.