Steamboat

I love steamboat parties. The warmth from the charcoal in the steamboats; the rich broth with noodles at the end; the chance to steal everyone's prawns during the meal; the lively conversation as each basket cooks. All these elements make it my favourite kind of party.

You may not have experienced steamboat, and you may arrive dressed for a boat trip, yes, Clodagh, I'm talking about you! At Sunday night's steamboat someone suggested that maybe it got its name from the appearance of the smoke chugging out of the steamboat chimney.

The easiest way to describe it is that its like fondue, except instead of cheese there's a broth to cook the food. Everyone has a small basket that they fill with the meat, seafood or vegetables of their choice, after its been in the broth for a bit its a simple matter of dropping the cooked contents into your bowl to eat. But not before filling and dropping the next basket into the broth. The charcoals in the centre of the steamboat keep the broth boiling nicely as well as radiating heat across the table. Yumm!

The best bit comes towards the end. After an hour or so of different meats and vegetables cooking in the liquid it takes on a rich flavour that can be slurped out of your bowl. We keep topping up the liquid with hot water to ensure there's still enough to cook more baskets of food. Finally, when everyone starts slowing down, its time to drop some fresh noodles into the broth. Definitely the best bit.

Freeze ahead chicken and lamb skewers

It's been a busy few weeks for parties which has meant lots of testing of the barbeque recipes. And now with the cooler recipes I've reviseted some the warming roast recipes. The best thing about the cooler weather is that it means its time for steamboat parties. But more on that another time.

The great thing about bbqs is that its easy to prepare things in advance and there is usually someone willing to take a turn cooking, there's seemingly something irresistible about cooking with fire. It's easy to prepare the meat skewers in advance, as this is the time consuming part of the preparation and they freeze quite well. This means that on the day of the party its just a matter of preparing the vege skewers, the prawn skewers and voila, you're ready to rock'n'roll. Just be sure to get to the prawn skewers before everyone else polishes them off!

These quantities will serve 25-30 people.

Honey Mustard Chicken Skewers

1/4 cup mustard
1/2 head of garlic, peeled and crushed
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper
2kg skinless thigh fillets, cubed (by the butcher)

Put the chicken in a bowl and mix through the other ingredients. Leave to marinade for an hour or so and then thread onto skewers. Arrange on a plate or in a lasagna dish and wrap well in cling film. Freeze.

Leave these in the fridge to fully defrost over night. These take about 10 minutes on each side to cook on a hot bbq.

Orange and Ginger Lamb Skewers

3 oranges, peeled and chopped roughly
150g ginger, peeled and chopped roughly
1 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 cup soy sauce
2kg lamb, cubed (by the butcher)

Process the orange flesh, ginger, pepper and soy sauce into a thick paste. Put the lamb in a bowl and mix through the orange/ginger/soy paste. Leave to marinade for an hour or so then thread onto skewers. Arrange on a plate or in a lasagna dish and wrap well in cling film. Freeze.

Leave these in the fridge to fully defrost over night. These take about 10 minutes on each side to cook on a hot bbq.

Prawn and Coriander Skewers

2/3 cup lime juice
1/2 head of garlic, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons palm sugar
1 large red chilli, chopped
2 handfuls of coriander leaves
1 kg green prawns (headed and peeled)

Process the lime juice, garlic, sugar, chilli and coriander leaves into a gooey mix. Put the prawns in a bowl and pour over the lime/garlic/coriander mix. Skewer the prawns, 3 to a skewer.

These will cook quite quickly on a hot bbq, just 1-2 minutes on each side.

Alas poor Saucepan, I had used him well

My cooking career (such as it is) is littered with the remains of those poor roasting pans and saucepans that have been thoughtlessly forgotten about. So when the chicken stock that had been simmering away nicely in the afternoon was forgotten when I popped out to meet friends for dinner, the poor unfortunate saucepan that met me on my return was a charred mess. This not the first time I've abused a saucepan. In fact, under the kitchen sink I have some dishwasher powder for just such occasions, sometimes the cremated pan can be recovered by soaking in a hot water and dishwasher powder. Time will tell if the latest cremation can be recovered.

Luckily, I have some stock already in the freezer to make some soup. Its the best insurance against the colds and bugs that seem to be going around at this time of year. I usually grab the seconds from my local fruit and vege shop to make this tomato and capsicum soup. The stock is made from the chicken carcass from a sunday roast, boiled with some parsnip, carrots, celery, onion, peppercorns and a bay leaf.

2kg tomatoes
2 capsicums, chopped
1 red onion
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon oregano leaves, chopped
500ml chicken stock

Put the tomatoes, capsicum, onion and garlic in a roasting tray and sprinkle with the salt and oregano. Roast in a moderate oven, 180˚ or approximately 40 minutes.

Process the roasted vegetables with all the juices from the pan. Process until smooth and then push through a sieve to create a smooth tomato soup. Add the chicken stock and simmer for 30 minutes.

This is delicious in front of an old movie, I suggest Roman Holiday, sprinkled with ground pepper and some freshly buttered toast on the side.

Spiced Chicken

The best way to cheat for a prepared ahead party is food that can be made a week or more in advance. Its so easy to take it out of the freezer the night before so that it is easy to throw the defrosted dish into the oven an hour or two before everyone arrives. One of my most thumbed through cookbooks is Madhur Jaffrey's Simple Indian Cooking. The many stains on the pages is a testament to the deliciously failproof recipes. This recipe is adapted from her Tandoori Chicken. This is one of my favourite dishes to put on the table early in the evening of a bbq, it gives anyone who is absolutely starving something to munch on while waiting for the main event and the later arrivals. It also freezes nicely in some snaplock bags.


3kg chicken thigh meat
juice of 2 lemons
1 teaspoons salt
900ml plain yoghurt
1 onion
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon ginger, chopped
4 tablespoons kashmiri chilli
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons cummin seeds
1 tablespoon garam marsala

Squeeze the lemon juice over the chicken and sprinkle with salt. Set aside.

Process a few spoons of the yoghurt (just enough to make it easy to process) with the garlic and ginger. Process until smooth and mix through the remainder of the yoghurt.

Fry the coriander and cummin in a small dry saucepan until fragrant. Grind in a co-opted coffee grinder or mortar and pestle. Add the freshly ground spices with the kashmiri chilli and garam marsala to the yoghurt mix. Pour over the chicken and freeze.

The day before the party put the chicken in the fridge to defrost.

I tend to cram the lot into two trays quite tightly so it takes about 45 minutes to cook in a hot oven, 220˚.

When it all goes wrong

I'm not really used to cooking for kids, well, let me qualify, I'm not used to cooking main meals for kids. Mostly I enjoy bribing my nephews and nieces with cupcakes, biscuits and a cornucopia of chocolate-based sweets. So now the challenge is to create something foolproof to avoid some of those dramas when my smaller guests aren't so keen on the thyme and chilli quail.

Now the criteria is that it has to be quite safe - so nothing spicy, it has to be something I'd eat myself, and it has to be able to be prepared ahead of time. The results were the pasty, gluggy nuggets on the right. The ones on the left were cooked in the frypan. My opinionated two-year old taste tester declared the ones on the left to be yummyummyummmm and wouldn't touch the ones on the right.

So back to the drawing board and my best effort so far is to fry the nuggets first in butter so that they brown quickly and then finish the cooking for 30 minutes in the oven. That's to leave 30 minutes before guests arrive to shower and dress. To be honest I'm not quite happy enough with this, it doesn't leave enough time for a glass of bubbles on the back deck, but hopefully a few more goes and I'll get something I'm happier with.

Beef and Potato Pie

One thing I struggled with when living in Dublin was the short days and long, cold nights. This is when I really started to enjoy slow cooked meals that would radiate heat through the kitchen and into the rest of the house. There was nothing better than a crackling fire, a warm house and a lovely glass of full-bodied red wine with a hearty pie to look forward to. This is my version of a bit of Dublin while keeping a bit of Brisbane in a dish.

1.5kg blade steak, diced
1/4 cup plain flour, for dusting
2 tblspns oil
2 brown onions, chopped
1 clove garlic
2-3 cups of guinness
250g button mushroms, sliced
1 bay leaf
1 tspn vegemite
salt and pepper
2 carrots, diced
600g potatoes, sliced thinly

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees. Roll the beef in the flour. Heat some of the oil in a large saucepan and brown the beef in batches, they don't need to be cooked through, about 5 minutes for each batch. Set aside.

Add the rest of the oil to the saucepan and brown the onions until soft, around 4 minutes and add the garlic for the last minute or so.

While the onions are browning, put the guiness in a saucepan and boil until reduced by half.

Add the beef, onions, mushrooms, bay leaf, vegemite and guiness to a casserole dish and stir through. Cover with a lid and cook in a low oven for approximately 2 hours. Add the the carrots, place the sliced potato on top and cook uncovered for another hour. Serves 6.

Mango Cheesecake

Now, there's nothing that beats a slice of creamy cheesecake, unless its cheesecake filled with juicy summer mango. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to score some delicious fresh bowen mangoes from the in-laws' backyard in Townsville. I love eating these for breakfast but if there's too many to eat before they go bad they make the nicest cheesecake. I then use the tastiest orange/mango juice I can find to make the topping, I figure if its good to drink it'll be good to eat. This is my mango cheesecake recipe:

250g plain sweet biscuits (I use Nice or Arrowroot)
150g butter, melted
750ml of orange/mango juice
1 tblspn gelatine for topping
1 tblspn gelatine for cheesecake
1 cup cream
500g cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 mango, sliced thinly

Process or crush the biscuits until they are reduced to fine crumbs. Add butter and process again until mixed through.

Press 2/3 of the biscuit mixture around the sides of the springform tin and then press the remaining mixture into the base. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, split the juice between two small bowls. Add 1 tablespoon of gelatine to each, stirring until the gelatine is dissolved. Microwave each bowl for approx 30 seconds, so that the gelatine is thoroughly dissolved. Set aside.

Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Set aside.

Beat the cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add lemon juice and one of the bowls of orange/mango juice. Fold in the whipped cream. Pour the half the cheesecake mix into the tin, add most of the sliced mango, then pour the remaining cheesecake mix while ensuring there's enough room on top for the jelly.

Arrange the remaining slices around the top of the cheesecake. Pour the second bowl of juice over the top of the cheesecake.

Refrigerate overnight. This cheesecake freezes nicely so that there's a ready dessert for when I don't feel like cooking.

I would have liked to put a picture up but I got too keen and cut a slice before it was set. This is my warning the impatient cook, the jelly topping will slide off and form a sad little mango juice puddle on the plate: it's probably better to wait more than half-an-hour for the cheesecake to set!