Friday’s Lunch & Dinner

Favourite Lunch Option – Paella

Yummy Spanish Paella from the Market. Really good! The French lady sells only Paella and the condiments to make it. She has 2 giant frying pans, each pan the size of a table. This is one of my lunch favourites and least expensive. It is sold packed full of fresh prawns, squid rings, baby squids, mussels and chicken. She tends to give more seafood than rice when I actually preferred the rice because it had soaked up all the savoury goodness from the seafood. Heh. Gets sold out pretty early!

Experimental Dinner – Bacon, Mushrooms, Asparagus and French Toast

Bacons with Asparagus or Mushrooms or French Toast never goes wrong! Found a bunch of asparagus from the Market and coupled with the bacon I got from the stall (mentioned in the previous post), I decided to cook something different. I got hold of some fresh chanterelles (caught W looking at them once), brown button mushrooms and another mushroom (which tastes like shitake). And since I was feeling adventurous, I also bought a tub of freshly made creme fraiche to make french toast for breakfast. However, after going through some blogs, I have decided to make the french toasts for dinner instead! I am so glad I did it. The sweet creamy texture of the french toast goes really well with the salty bacon! All thanks to the amazing creme fraiche! With it, I also made a mushroom sauce with the mushrooms. It was a great dinner and quick to prepare too!

Mushrooms Recipe

> 2 Tbsp Butter (I use lightly salted)

> 5 medium sized brown button mushrooms / 1 Handful of Chanterelles / 5 medium size shitake mushrooms / or any mushrooms

> 1 Tbsp fresh cream

> pinch of salt

> pepper (optional)

Wash the mushrooms. If you are using Chanterelles, give it a quick brush or quick wash (drain with kitchen towels). Melt the butter and skim off the milk solids to leave the golden liquid behind. Toss in the hard mushrooms first and fry for 2mins followed by the soft mushrooms. As the mushrooms begin to shrink and brown, stir in the cream. The mushrooms would release some juice and a sauce is formed. Add salt and pepper to taste. You do not want the mushrooms to overcook and turn mushy. Take mushrooms off the fire once a thin film of sauce is formed at the base of the saucepan. It would continue to cook on its own.

Asparagus Preparation

Break the dry end of the asparagus. It would break naturally at the most tender section. If you are getting large spears, use a vegetable peeler and peel away the ‘skin’ 5cm away from the tip of the spear to the end. Heat up a frying pan. Add olive oil. Fry up the bacon slices (if you have) until brown and move to serving plate. With the remaining oil (flavoured by the bacon), toss in the Asparagus Spears. If the pan dries out, add a little water. The water would make a sauce to aid the cooking of the asparagus. Once the asparagus has turned deep green and soft, move to serving plate.

French Toast Recipe

> see following post

Tags: asparagus, chanterelles, french toasts, mushrooms, paella