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Alfred's Kitchen in Guildford was where I tried pea and ham soup for the first time and since then we have always tried to go to Alfie's once a month for that soup (as well as burgers sometimes).

Now that it's winter here, the craving for substantial soups has started. So I made a batch and luckily the recipe turned out this time. Not as good as Alfie's but close enough.

ps: Hi K!

Home cooked goodness...

I had a lovely piece of Death by Chocolate from work that is now a lump of chocolatey mess.

Because I forgot about it and chucked it in the backpack with the rest of the work stuff. Oops.

It's been a little hard to write about food lately but there are more pictures on the flickr site and I guess more entries will follow soonish.

I couldn't resist buying Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cookingwhen I went past Dymock's and saw it was on sale. Since then a couple of recipes have been tried and the favourite so far was the stir-fried chicken fillets with honey & ginger. I had forgotten to take pictures of said dish when I made it but here's one of a similar dish anyways.

The book is pretty good in terms of contents regarding Chinese cookery - simple explanations of what is what etc; and I like how she has a sort of "menu planner" at the end of the book. The pork fillet dish was quite simple to make, simply combine the meat with the marinade ingredients, leave overnight and voila! You just simply cook it when you want to eat it and it's done.

Easy peasy.

Stir-Fried Pork Fillets with Honey & Ginger

600g pork fillets, cut into 5mm slices
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 spring onions, trimmed & cut into 10cm lengths
1 tbsp. malt vinegar
1 tbsp. light soy sauce
1 tbsp. water
2 limes, halved

Marinade:
2 tbsp. honey
2 tbsp. light soy sauce
2. tbsp. shao xing wine (or dry sherry)
2 tbsp. finely diced ginger
1 tbsp. oyster sauce
2 tsp dark soy sauce
2 tsp 5-spice powder
½ tsp sesame oil

Combine the pork with the marinade ingredients in a bowl, cover and leave to marinade in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (or overnight for best results).

Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a hot wok, add half the meat and stir-fry 30 seconds before removing from work and set aside. Heat the remaining oil in the wok and then stir-fry the rest of the meat for another 30 seconds before adding the reserved meat with the rest of the ingredients. Stir-fry until the pork is just cooked through.

Arrange the meat on a platter and serve with lime halves. I had mine with steamed rice.

This book makes up for not being able to go to her event.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. ~Voltaire

Leeuwin Estate is organising an evening at the Perth Town Hall and presenting Kylie Kwong as guest chef with the Beaumonde Catering Brigade on Wednesday 12 April 2006 at 7pm.

Guests will be treated to selected dishes from her newest cook book as well as matching wines from the premium Leeuwin Estate Art Series (including the 2001 Art Series Cabernet Sauvignon). The evening cost for the 4-course dinner with wines is $120.00 per person and bookings can be made by contacting the Dymocks Literary Events on (08)9385 6820.

Holidays were great but it does feel awesome to be back home again. Though it doesn't really feel that great being back in the heat (expected temperature today 37°C!).

Much food was had so pictures will be uploaded. Eventually.