Cooking with tea!

Sarah from Simply Cooked was our November Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to create something truly unique in both taste and technique! We learned how to cook using tea with recipes from Tea Cookbook by Tonia George and The New Tea Book by Sara Perry.

I made a chicken stir-fry using a lemongrass & ginger tea as part of the marinade for the chicken and for the sauce to coat the stir-fry. I added carrots, red capsicum, broccoli, mushrooms and green beans and combined the tea with some soy sauce, chilli, garlic, ginger and shallots.

The flavour combinations worked quite nicely and made a perfect mid-week dinner for this warmer weather we've been experiencing lately. Thanks Sarah :)

Daring Cooks - Appams and South-Indian Curries!

All in all a successful challenge with yummy results, my fussy sister in particular couldn't get enough! Thanks Mary!!

Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.

Appams are made from rice, yeast and coconut milk and sort of resemble a crepe. Id never heard of them before the challenge so it was quite interesting a challenge as i had no expectations of what they would taste like or how they would turn out. The batter ferments for 8-12 hours before cooking the appams individually.

The finished product should be slightly crispier on the edges and spongy in the centre. You need to have a covering over the pan when cooking otherwise the appam does not cook correctly.

I made the appams with a vegetable and chickpea south indian spiced curry,

a cucumber raita(pictured below in green bowl) & butter chicken -i know its not south indian or sri-lankan but my sister could fathom the idea of 'indian' food without butter chicken! haha.