I briefly mentioned this earlier but I want to wax lyrical about
my local supermarket. They have a quiet night, which is for two and a half hours on Monday night from 6:30, for people who get overstimulated by too much... stimulation. Yeah. So there's no music, the beeping of the cash registers is significantly quieter and they dim the lights.
There's live music on a piano at the back of the supermarket. There's a salumi bar, a cheese bar, a full-on patisserie, a seafood bar and a
restaurant. You can take a seat and a plate at all of these spots. In a
supermarket.
But of course, the reason for a supermarket is the stuff you actually buy in it.
BAM Asian produce. They have durian and rambutan! Fresh galangal and kaffir lime--not just the leaves, but the fruit. Feijoa, kohlrabi, lychees and okra, and those are the things I've
heard of. It's at this point when I'm telling people about Pasadena Foodland that they usually go "oh yeah, you can get them at the Central Markets," but the Central Markets are something special. This isn't an Asian supermarket or the Central Markets, this is a frigging
supermarket.
What the shit is an abiu? Or a hairy melon? Sapodilla? So after four years of shopping there and going in with my shopping list based off a recipe I've got in my books at home, but walking past all this weird shit and wondering how to use it and what it tastes like, this year I decided to approach things a little differently. Go to the supermarket, pick a weird thing, look up a recipe using it on my phone and make the shopping list while I'm there.
So my experiments so far this year! I've made
this hairy melon recipe, which was... the actual stuffing was odd? Somehow it was lacking, and the vermicelli was an odd addition. The hairy melon itself was kinda like a giant zucchini, right down to the hairyness of it. You know that sort of prickly feel zucs have? Yeah, like that. It was much firmer than a zuc, tho, so it held together really well and was still reasonably chunky after being in the oven for 45 minutes.
I made okra! From a recipe in one of my recipe books, which was part of what started me on this weird shit kick. So this was Turkish-inspired and had lamb mince sausages I made as well (mixture didn't hold together but it was super tasty, honestly I'd just use all the stuff that wasn't mince as a marinade on chops), an amaaaazing salsa, a salad with pomegranates because WOO summer, and the okra! 'How do you cook [weird thing]?' 'Looootta garlic.' Idk if it fell into that typical style but there were four garlic cloves involved in just the okra, also fried onion and that kind of general yumminess. I enjoyed it! Weird texture, slimy in the middle with some little seeds that go pop in your mouth, honestly not sure on the taste because of all the garlic. The whole meal was pretty awesome. Every now and then I just like doing a meal with a whole lot of stuff to it, just for me. I like cooking.
Made
this, which used both kumquats and tamarind paste, and it was amazing and I recommend it highly if you can get your hands on kumquats and tamarind paste. I didn't put any sugar in it cos it's not a goddamn dessert and it's already got kumquats in it, it's sweet enough. Went so well with pork, omg perfect.
The latest one has been
venison, which I actually got as part of the meat shop, because every meat shop I get one special meat, like duck or prawns or something else pricey. Cos it's only me here, and for just the odd one-off it's not a hell of a lot more expensive than the standard stuff. So yeah. Every venison recipe is full-on gourmet. I was just saddened that the celeriac in the supermarket was super piddly that day. Like in the past few weeks they've been HUGE beautiful monsters, easily the size of a melon, but these were barely the size of a decent onion. Anyway. The recipe was beauuuuutiful, amazing sauce with all the cherries. The meat itself is so much like kangaroo, very yummy, so I'll probably do this recipe again with roo. Love adding to my roo recipes list. I've got one bit of venison left so that'll be dinner tomorrow, then next~
Banana flowers! Specifically
this recipe, only I'm low on meat--all I have left is half a pork belly, a tray of lamb chops and two bits of salmon--so I'll probably do this one with the salmon. Salmon always goes well with Thai flavours so I feel that'll be a good slide-in.
Also, Thai basil! I just planted some over the weekend. I don't have a cup and a half of it, but I also don't have a kilo of chicken (which will be played by salmon, as mentioned) so idk, half-recipe. Why doesn't Pasadena Foodland have Thai basil? They have finger limes, Buddha's hands and breadfruit but no Thai basil? I know this cos I've looked twice for other recipes, hence trying to grow the stuff. Last time I planted it, it got completely overwhelmed by the Vietnamese mint, so hopefully it'll be happier this time around.
There it is, third photo is my herb garden. The big grassy one is lemongrass, to the left of that, the bushy one is the Vietnamese mint, and the little one in front and between the two of them is the Thai basil. Clearly that is not a cup and a half's worth. D'yknow what I'm going to hold off on that recipe until it grows big enough to get a cup and a half of Thai basil off of it.
Okay so. Hot weather~ weird foods~
that one. Yam beans and baby Asian salad leaves. I can do that one with the pork belly. DONE.
Also it's hot again but it's also February so that'll happen. Since Saturday it's been 35, 37, 37, 37 today, 36 tomorrow, 40, 39, then a cool change down to 32, 30 and 28.
It's also festival season, so the Fringe is on (woo!) and the formerly-Clipsal-now-just-Adelaide-500 V8s are on (boo). Well, road closures are on, racing doesn't start til tomorrow. Monday I left home 15 minutes early in anticipation of traffic and arrived at work 20 minutes late, because I underestimate the Monday every goddamn year. So okay, fine, Tuesday I left home 25 minutes early... and got to work 25 minutes early. What the shit even. So that made up for Monday??? At least??? Today I almost got it, only got in 5 minutes late, so I've had a net ratio of on-time this week. Yay.
FINALLY. No wait. I should put this bit in a private post cos it really relies on real names.
