An Australian Christmas

December 23, 2011 by Briony

So what exactly is an Australian Christmas? It’s not really too different from a UK Christmas – just less focus on hot food and more cold meats. And obviously, like every Christmas, it varies from house to house. This is the Christmas lunch I’ve been having since a child and, having missed two already, I really needed one this year. We decided to celebrate our Australian Christmas on Sunday so we had lots of time to eat all the leftovers without infringing on our eating ability on the traditional Christmas Day.

We ate:

Prawn cocktail

Sadly, these prawns aren’t up to scratch size-wise, but this was still tasty! Prawns with a 50:50 mix of crab meat (white and brown meat), avocado and home-made seafood sauce, all served on little gem lettuce. This has always been my favourite part of Christmas lunch (well, apart from dessert) and it was lovely with crab meat – although this serving was a bit too big for a starter.

Home-made seeded loaf

A delicious home-made loaf made by the baker of the house (husband, not me) which was perfectly baked. We will definitely be having this bread again.

The star of the show – a 2.7kg honey roast ham.

Sides of pigs in blankets, prunes in bacon and roast potatoes

Side of crispy kale with lemon

There was no way that two of us were going to eat all that ham, but I love having leftover ham to eat for days after Christmas. Part of it we froze (probably 1.5kgs) and we gave away another part of it, and then we stuffed ourselves silly on the rest. One night I made a super quick pasta with some of the ham thanks to Nigella’s recipe of pasta with ham, peas and cream.

Pavlova with berries and cream

The other best part of Christmas lunch. I pride myself on being quite the pavlova expert now as I have yet to have one fail (and I’ve probably made around 10 now). The only problem I still have is that the pavlova sticks to the baking paper, no matter how much cornflour I put down first. I also discovered that it really doesn’t matter about leaving the pavlova to cool in the oven – it will crack if you take it out, but seeing as you’re going to cover it with cream and berries anyway, why does that matter?

How do you celebrate Christmas and what are some of your favourite foods?

A week of home cooking

December 15, 2011 by Briony

I’m going to try to make this a semi regular feature as we haven’t been eating out quite as much. Here’s what we’ve been eating this week – if you want any of the recipes just let me know and I will edit the post to include them. I’ve included the recipe for one of the dishes as I’ve had a few people comment on it – even though it’s actually super easy!

Chicken croquettes with rocket & goat’s cheeses salad, sour cream & chive dip and tomato sauce

I’d made croquettes before (thanks to an Ottolenghi recipe) but they were more like patties and shallow fried. I decided to go the full hog (so to speak) and make proper croquettes. I found the shaping really difficult at first as I think my béchamel /chicken mixture was still too warm. Eventually I got there and they were more of a nice squoval shape (best way I can think to describe them!).

Apple and berry breakfast muffins

I decided to make these the other night (sometimes I bake when procrastinating). We had a lot of apples and yoghurt and I love having a muffin as a morning snack at work. These turned out brilliantly and the whole batch of them were gone within 24 hours (oops). I added granola to the mix as well which worked really well.

Moroccan chicken breast with crispy kale and lemon and tomato rice

This is so easy and so delicious. It probably took around 25 minutes to make from scratch, so is the perfect midweek dinner. I haven’t posted the recipe for the rice as it turned out a bit gluggy so I need to work on that some more. If you’ve never tried kale before, you really have it – it is absolutely amazing (especially when baked) and is incredibly healthy. Trust me, you’ll love it!

Moroccan chicken breast

4 chicken breasts, skin off

1/2 cup of yoghurt (plain or Greek is fine)

1/2 cup chopped coriander

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 tbsp olive oil

1.5 tsp paprika

1.5 tsp cumin

Salt & pepper to taste

Simply mix the yoghurt with the coriander, garlic, oil and spices in a large container. Then add in the chicken breasts and make sure they’re really well coated.

Cover, and place in the fridge for as long as you have – I only marinated them for a few hours but you could do it for longer.

I cooked them on the George Foreman Grill but any kind of grill would be fine – for about 6-10 minutes depending on how thick the chicken is.

Crispy kale

100g kale

Olive oil

Salt

Lemon juice

Wash and dry the kale really well. Spread it out on a baking sheet and drizzle with oil. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 10 minutes. Remove and sprinkle with some salt and lemon juice.

Viva Brazil Restaurant, Glasgow City Centre, Glasgow

December 2, 2011 by Briony

I’d heard about Viva Brazil on the grapevine but wasn’t really sure what it was all about until we went for dinner last Thursday. I’d had one of those days, it was pouring with rain, I’d trekked to Edinburgh and back and was totally drenched by the time I arrived for dinner. Thankfully all my stress and frustration soon dissipated upon eating at Viva Brazil.

We met the owner, Jaf Siddiqi who explained how to restaurant works to us and told us a bit about the food and idea of the restaurant (I’ll come back to that later!). Jaf explained that food is served rodizio style – traditional Brazilian style – whereby you pay a fixed price for your meals and waiters bring around different meats to serve to you at the table. On your table, you’ll find your coaster serves as a yes/no signal for more food – just switch over to red when you need a break and the waiters will leave you to get on with eating or digesting. If you feel like getting back into the food, flip to green and they’ll be back with more meats for you.

Chilli chicken – frango com pimenta

You can also go up to the salad bar and help yourself to whatever you fancy – this comes with a warning though, don’t fill up your plate on salad and leave no room for the delicious meats!

Hot salad bar and cold salad bar

I loved the meats – they were all cooked in the same way (on a barbecue and being Australian, obviously I love a barbie!) but all the meats had different marinades or finish so were all different flavours. Some of the meats we tried were the chilli chicken, pictured above – I loved this and it had a real spice to it. We were offered chicken hearts and I initially baulked at the idea, but then decided to just give them a whirl anyway (they are quite small after all). They were actually delicious! I really enjoyed them. At Viva Brazil they marinade them in red wine, garlic, black pepper and oregano. I was really impressed. If you want to know the rest of the meats on offer, they have a huge range of red meats (rump, lamb, sirloin, flank steak, pork and beef ribs) as well as an assortment of chicken – you can check out the selection on their menu.

Barbecue where all the assorted meats are cooked

If you’re not a meat lover, don’t think that you’d just be left with the salad bar as your only option – they also do a seafood option which gives you a heavenly assortment of prawns and fish on a tray to your table.

Seafood selection

Viva Brazil has a really nice atmosphere – the restaurant is a huge space but they have cleverly split it into sections so you don’t feel like you’re sitting in a vacant hall. We had booth seats which face out toward the rest of the restaurant so you can watch everything that is going on.

After our meal, Jaf filled us in a bit more about the foods and how much effort they go to make it an authentic Brazilian experience. They import some of their ingredients from Brazil instead of substituting another item of a lesser standard.

We then were treated to a big selection of desserts, which I was worried about as I was already at bursting point. Thankfully the deserts are light and really refreshing after devouring so much meat.

Mango, papaya and passionfruit desserts

Going to Viva Brazil made me remember why I love writing this blog so much – meeting people like Jaf who are so passionate and enthusiastic about their food and sharing it with people. I’m really glad we had the opportunity to visit as I’d never had a Brazilian meal before and I really loved the experience. I think it would be a really fun and interesting place to go to share a meal with a group of friends.

The Glasgow Food Blog dined as guests of 3×1 Public Relations