Chocolate Dutch baby & rainy day rendang

🍕 Plus a no-knead pizza dough

The very best thing I ate last month was a Biang Biang noodle feast prepared by my brother and sister-in-law who came to stay for the long weekend. 

They flipped spring onion pancakes, slapped noodles on the bench, blitzed avocado shakes and made sure any leftovers were stashed in the freezer. 

Turns out some of the most memorable meals are the ones lovingly prepared for you. 

Here are five stand-out recipes from last month, plus my favourite s’mores supplies.

🔥 Here for hot breakfasts

For cold mornings when you need something special to coax you out of bed, make Smitten Kitchen’s chocolate Dutch baby. It’s not as decadent as it might look — it tastes like a regular Dutch baby pancake with a hint of chocolate cake. I don’t own an oven-proof skillet and make mine in a pie dish and it always works fine! 

And for mornings when you feel like waking up slowly as you stir your porridge and listen to podcasts, I love the BBC’s perfect porridge, ideally topped with yoghurt and a big blob of jam.

🍚 Beef rendang with rice

Brown food is good food.

I have the very best memories of rendang made from a packet — a meal my dad made semi-regularly on Sundays.

I started making it myself in the pandemic, and after a few big fails, I’ve finally settled on the simple recipe on the back of this bag of spices (and the spice mix too). Best of all, the active cooking time is very quick, before it goes into the oven to slow cook for a few hours.

🍕 No-knead pizza dough

Mixing up some overnight pizza dough is about as much meal prep as I’m willing to do these days. Stir the ingredients together the night before, leave it to ferment slowly and then have fun deciding on your toppings for the next night.

🍞 Cute little sandwich loaf

Nigella’s old fashioned sandwich loaf is so easy to make, it almost feels magical. It’s a yeasted bread where the total time spent kneading is 30 seconds. I made it this week because I had an awkward amount of leftover sour cream (you can also use off milk in the recipe!).

I’m slowly remembering how nice it is to make bread just because, rather than making it to try and avoid Covid at the shops.

🍰 Other nice things

I found a Japanese cake shop in Launceston.

Have you ever made s’mores with chocolate coated Digestive Thins? They’re popping up at supermarkets and are so good when you live in a country where graham crackers don’t exist. I bought some fancy marshmallows because it’s our first autumn with a wood heater and we had guests.

Korean American: The Playlist from Eric Kim.

I’m really enjoying Borderline Salty, a new podcast from BA alums Carla Lalli Music and Rick Martinez. They take cooking questions from callers (which reminds me of Home Cooking, minus the puns) and I learn something new every time. I love how Rick tackles a question about cooking “authentically” from your culture in the first episode, especially when you’re second or third gen.

My newest cookbook is Ruby Tandoh’s Cook As You Are, which appeared at the bookstore in town over the Easter long weekend. It normalises many different kinds of cooking and has the nicest illustrations in place of stylised food pics. The first thing I made? Galaxy granola, which has instant coffee mixed through!

I started watching Julia, the HBO series about Julia Child, a little half-heartedly and then suddenly became a fan. The actor who plays Niles from Frasier is cast as Julia’s husband Paul! It’s also kind of crazy to watch her story in a time when we have so many YouTube cooking videos and viral TikTok recipes.

And finally, food for thought.

Catch you next month,

Sonya