Soothing chicken soup, double lemon shortbread, chaotic toast
Plus, how you really make porridge
Hello from mid-winter, where I’m abandoning plans to cook for ramen pop-ups and baking every Sunday.
My number one recommendation this month is the tastiest chicken soup. By Heidi Sze, it’s what I imagined the chicken soup from cartoons and books would be like, flavour-wise and for feeling better. It was worth splurging on my first jar of bone broth.
I’ve made it a bunch of different ways — with broccoli and then peas, served with buttered bread, and a version with instant noodles (very fun). It’s a lovely one to make and share during the cold/flu season too.
Not a sad work lunch
My end-of-the-week work lunch is often peanut butter and sliced banana on toast. This was so much better. I made parmesan and garlic-roasted cauli (another easy Heidi recipe), bought some sticky chicken meatballs and made a salad from things I found in the fridge.
Double lemon shortbread
One Saturday we picked 27 lemons from the tree in our backyard. It was the best excuse to make the salted lemon shortbread from Alison Roman’s latest cookbook Sweet Enough. Definitely add the preserved lemon if you try it (I almost chickened out) and enjoy while watching the last episodes of XO Kitty, a show that completely sucked me in.
Fluffy buttermilk pancakes
I’m doubling down on hot Sunday breakfasts because it’s hard to leave the house in winter and going out is suddenly very 🤑. I regularly halve this Alison Roman recipe, to make six decent-sized pancakes and two short-stacks. The batter holds up if you’re organised enough to make it the night before. It also makes for satisfyingly round pancakes.
This insulated coffee pot is a game changer for brunch at home if you’re a filter coffee fan. It means everything can be served hot without feeling like you’re playing Overcooked.
That’s not how you make porridge
Yvonne C Lam’s porridge piece for the Guardian had me digging around for the spurtle I got for Christmas. The ratio is one-part oats, three-parts water and a pinch of salt. I even bought a bag of Bob’s Red Mill Scottish Oatmeal after learning rolled oats are not ideal. It was a very first-month-of-winter purchase. Yvonne’s blurry food Instagram is also very good.
Eric Kim’s chaotic toast
Did you see Eric Kim post this toast combo on Instagram? My first reaction was 🤔 Then I saw a bunch of people rate it and ended up making it three times this week. It’s peanut butter, flaky sea salt, honey (or maple), then nutritional yeast (he says add more than you think you need).
Veggie stir fry with fish fingers and lup cheong
Like most good things in Australian food, I learnt about Lara Lee’s new cookbook A Splash of Soy via writer and podcaster Lee Tran Lam. My dad grew up in Indonesia, so I was intrigued by the promise of fast Asian meals including some inspired by Lara’s Chinese-Indonesian and Australian heritage.
A stir fry with fish fingers jumped out because has one of my favourite ingredients — lup cheong. Lara describes it as a ‘Chinese wind-dried sausage’, which sounds poetic to me. It’s a deeply salty preserved pork sausage that’s rich enough to use in small amounts. In this recipe it’s sliced and fried with sweet potato, broccolini and baby corn. Fish fingers add a decent crunch and it’s a very cheery meal served with rice.
Travel highlights
The last time I visited Melbourne was in February 2020 🥴 So it was very good to be back last month. I rode the tram like a tourist, had too-strong coffee, and ate a pile of soupy dumplings.
I have to tell you about this $10 baguette from Betwixt. It had potato-filled croquettes, crunchy fresh veggies and a delicious Japanese curry sauce. It was a last minute purchase before my flight home, which meant I gently carried it for over an hour — it even went through the airport x-ray.
Back in Tasmania, I planned a beach holiday around this lobster shack on the east coast, where you can go rock-hopping, see penguins and a local seal called Neil if you’re lucky. Governors is a cute spot for coffee with sea shack vibes, the French bakery was closed for a holiday (such a Tassie winter hibernation thing) but I’m told it’s great!
If I’m organised, my favourite coffee to pack for travelling are these coffee bags from Reuben Hills. They’re nice for slow mornings and trips to sleepy towns and heaps easier than parachutes.
Thank you for sharing Heidi's soup recipe. I made it last night and was floored by how rich it was given the quick cooking time. I attempted to make broth at the same time from leftover roast chicken bones while prepping the rest, thinking I'd need to prop it up with some stock powder but nope! So good and looking forward to having again for lunch today.
Brilliant porridge subhead - I haven't thought about that ad for years ;)
Loving the sound of that double lemon shortbread too 💛