I bought Share My Plate from the Asylum Seeker Welcome Centre one Sydney Road Street Party, as I thought it would be cool to support a great cause and to have more recipes from around the world. This book is written by people who use the Asylum Seeker Welcome Centre, whether for communal meals, or for forms of community and/or support, and the recipes do show that these people are not professional recipe writers (but so few of us are).
That aside, the recipes I made were very tasty, it was incredibly hard to choose the ones I was going to cook, and sadly there aren’t very many vegetarian dishes to make so I made two of the three that I noticed were vegetarian (there may have been others that I missed). I’d recommend buying this book because the money goes to a good cause, and the recipes themselves are really tasty (though when it says spicy, they actually mean it). All up I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars. I’ve corrected the recipes where the instructions are vague or confusing.
Ohn Nok Kaukswe (Coconut Noodles)
Ingredients:
- 1.5kg chicken Maryland, boned and skinless
- 5 – 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 4 medium onions, chopped finely
- 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
- 4 tbsp vegetable or peanut oil
- 1 – 2 tsp sweet paprika
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 4 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tsp chicken stock
- 2/3 cups coconut milk
- 2 tbsp chickpea flour (besan)
- bunch of coriander leaves
- 2 – 3 lemons or limes
- 500g flat thin noodles (rice noodles best)
Method:
- Cut chicken into serving pieces.
- Heat oil in a large saucepan and fry diced onions, garlic, and ginger with turmeric powder until soft and golden.
- Add chicken pieces and gently stir in the fish sauce and cook together.
- Mix together paprika, chicken stock, coconut milk, and chickpea flour dissolved in a little water.
- When the chicken is cooked through, add the sauce above. Bring to a simmer and let the sauce thicken (about 5 – 10 minutes).
- Taste and add salt as required.
- Serve over cooked flat noodles, garnish with coriander leaves and serve with thinly sliced lemon wedges.
Notes on this recipe:
- Although the chicken cooking with fish sauce sounds (and smells) disgusting, by the time the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has thickened, this dish is amazingly smooth and tasty. It was the highly of the evening as far as I was concerned.
- I hope I’ve amended this recipe so it makes sense – I haven’t changed it much from the original, just numbered the steps, and changed some of the language.
Spicy Potatoes
Ingredients:
- 500g potatoes
- 1 onion
- 2 tsp chilli powder
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp mustard powder
- 1 green capsicum
Method:
- Boil the potatoes until soft (around 20 minutes). Drain and set aside to cool (rinsing under cold water will assist this process). Cut into cubes once cool.
- Slice onions and green capsicum. Heat oil in large frying pan and add onions and capsicum.
- Fry for one minute and then add chilli powder, garlic, salt, sugar and mustard powder. Stir spices until fragrant (about 2 minutes).
- Add potatoes and mix into the onion and capsicum mixture.
- Cook for 3 minutes and then serve.
Notes on this recipe:
- This dish was so spicy I couldn’t eat it. I didn’t have any yoghurt in the house to take the burn out. Other people who have a higher chilli tolerance than me agreed it was spicy, but they enjoyed it.
- I recommend using small potatoes for this recipe so they cook quickly without having to be chopped into pieces first.
Tofu Paneer
Ingredients:
- 30g butter
- 4 cm piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
- 2 crushed garlic cloves
- 1.5 tsp coriander seeds
- 0.5 tsp cardamom seeds
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 2 fresh chillies, chopped and seeded
- 500g peas (frozen or fresh) or one bunch spinach, washed and chopped
- 350g feta cheese, cut into 2cm pieces
- 3 chopped tomatoes
- 350 – 500g tofu cut into 2cm pieces
- 1 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
Method:
- Fry ginger and garlic in melted butter for 2 – 3 minutes. Stir in spices and chillies, and then fry for a further minute, stirring constantly.
- Add a spoonful of water if the mixture is too dry. Stir in peas or spinach, tomatoes, feta and tofu and simmer gently for 10 minutes (15 minutes if using fresh peas).
- Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with chopped coriander.
Notes on this recipe:
- As this recipe doesn’t have any salt, it’s really important to use feta cheese, and not look at the recipe title and use paneer – trust me, I learnt this the hard way.
- This dish is really very tasty. I used spinach because I don’t like peas, and I would certainly make this again.
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