A Christmas banquet from Footscray's two markets

This is a commissioned piece by Footscray Life, a division of Maribyrnong Council.  See end of post for full details.

My challenge should I choose to accept it was Christmas dinner for eight, a flat $100, and everything to come from Footscray and Little Saigon markets.  I scratched my head, rubbed my tummy and came up with this devious plan:

Entree

Vietnamese-style poached chicken and lettuce wraps

Main

Crispy roast pork

Giant cous cous and roast vegie salad

Tabbouli

Dessert

Pavlova

Would I find everything?  Would it come in under a hundo?  Stick around and find out!

First stop, Footscray Market.  Six years ago, I'd stop here every weekend after another round of house hunting in the area.  The happy, multicultural hubbub was what made me fall in love with the inner west.

First stop, rice vinegar, fish sauce, rice vermicelli noodles and crispy fried shallots for my Vietnamese appetiser.  I really like this little Asian grocer, just off the Footscray Market food court.

It's tidy and well organised...

...and has quite a few interesting bits and pieces like this Filipino spiced coconut vinegar.  I highly recommend the fried tofu for sale on the counter, whether for taking home to place in homemade rice paper rolls or sushi, or just to nibble as you wander about the market!

"Big Trade" is the supermarket inside Footscray Market.  From the outside it can look a bit uninspiring, I admit, but if you rifle around inside you can uncover so much buried treasure.

Check out this awesome range of spices, like Turkish black chilli (a favourite ingredient of Greg Malouf, apparently) and liquorice bark slices.  The "chicken mix" has been a family favourite of ours for years - mix with yoghurt to make a delicious marinade for chicken on the barbie.  This is the place to grab allspice, the secret ingredient to really good tabbouli.

Big Trade also comes through with giant cous cous and burghul (cracked wheat, for the tabbouli).  They also sell freekeh or roasted, cracked green wheat (middle shelf, on the right above), a superfood that normally comes with a super price tag - but not here!  I'm also intrigued by the Turkish dried white corn on the middle shelf above.  It's for soups apparently, but I wonder if with a turn or two in a kind friend's Thermomix, it could actually be a stand-in for the American grits I so desperately crave?

Another Big Trade find - mastic, a dried tree gum with an intriguing "pine" flavour (see mastic ice cream here at Morsels and Musings - yum!)  The "machlepi" or "mahlab" are tiny cherry pips which are used, among other things, as an ingredient in Greg Malouf's Lebanese naqaniq sausages.

Big Trade also has flours (including proper "hard" flour for pasta or pizza making), oils and a much-loved deli with interesting cheeses.  After picking up our dry goods plus a pot of cream for the pavlova, it's time to move on...

...to Little Saigon Shopping Centre for seasonal fruit and crisp greens.  Like any market, it's worthwhile browsing the three main fruit shops for what looks best on the day.

There are snacks to be had along the way - try dipping the fruits in this chilli/salt sprinkle, which both offsets and serves to highlight their sweetness.

Once you buy greens from Little Saigon, you'll struggle to buy them anywhere else.  Bunches of mixed mints are about 70 cents each, as are whole bunches of spring onions.  See here on the right Vietnamese water spinach, and in the middle under the 4 for $2 sign, rice paddy herb, essential in rare beef with lemon coleslaw.  So much freshness!

There are loads of rarely-seen goodies like (on the left) fresh turmeric, baby Thai eggplants and (at top right) slightly alien-looking kohlrabi.  I'm here to snap up fresh limes for my nuoc cham Vietnamese dipping sauce (go for the ones that are slightly yellow, which denotes ripeness).

The fruit offerings are highly seasonal here, and now's the time of year to pick up the best mangos and cherries.  I got three gorgeous mangos for a little over $3 - that's total, not each!  Remember, you can taste just about everything so you know exactly what you're buying.

Now, loaded up with crisp iceberg lettuce, spring onion, white radish (for Vietnamese pickles), fresh fruit and more, it's back to Footscray Market for some more "continental" produce.  Bushy Park Wholesale is a relatively new resident (you can even like them on Facebook).  They have a good range of produce including loads of Asian veg - I even saw Indian methi or fresh fenugreek leaves!  They came through with really lovely bunches of Italian parsley, $1.50 each.

Masters next door is my old favourite, although I do miss the Lebanese girls who used to man the registers and were always up for a natter.  The outer display holds the best bargains, while inside there's more specialty produce like passionfruits (three for $2) and slender green baby zucchini.

Awesome - Australian garlic!  Plus my favourite taters, kipflers, which make the best potato salads.

Time to scour the meat hall for the main event, crispy roast pork.

I'm always scouting for what looks best on the day rather than having a favourite butcher, but the Hong Kong Meat Co is known for having more European-style cuts.  For around $30 I got a 2.5 kg rolled pork loin, trussed and ready for scoring (although I did have to unroll and retie to trim off some of the skin which had been rolled into the centre - you only want it on the outside).  Hot tip - TH Butcher across the way has great pork and fennel sausages.

Then at Dai Quang Poultry, it's time to get a whole free range chook (from Bannockburn, as seen at Sims)...

...and a half-dozen certified organic free range eggs ($3.80).  Awesome!

Last stop, Footscray Market Deli, owned by the same family as Masters fruit and veg.

The cheeses are so tempting but today I'm only after Dodoni feta for sprinkling on my cous cous salad (it was on special, but I reckon Bulgarian is just as good).

Likewise, smoked meats will have to wait for another day!

Did you know Footscray Market Deli sell gorgeous sourdough bread from the venerable Natural Tucker Bakery in North Carlton, as well as sourdough from traditional European baker Andrew in Laverton?

Two markets in under two hours!  Market ninja.

And here's the haul - everything from the markets, from vinegar to cream and everything in between, for the grand total of $91.30!  (You could use the extra $8.70 towards olive oil, salt or other basics if you didn't have them the cupboard.)

For the Vietnamese-style wraps, the chicken is poached in an Asian-style stock (infused with ginger, garlic, spring onions and black peppercorns) before being cooled and gently shredded.

The Vietnamese pickled vegetables can be made a few days before, by soaking carrot and daikon batons in a sweetened vinegar for at least one day.  (PS:  The carrots are from my vegie box, but they'd only add up to a few cents.  If you get a veg box too, you will sympathise with my constant state of carrot glut and why I couldn't bear to actually purchase the darn things!)

Then, arranged with iceberg cups, cooked and cooled rice vermicelli, pickled carrot, cucumber and interesting mints, guests can make their own cooling poached chicken and noodle wraps...

...and dunk them in piquant home-made nuoc cham sauce, a sweet/tangy blend of fish sauce, rice vinegar, lime juice and sugar.

Christmas to me means the kids in the pool, a full roast dinner and dozing, full-bellied uncles all around, Christmas cracker hats sagging lopsidedly atop slumbering heads.  I know it's not very modern but to me, Christmas has to have a roast, and what better than juicy roast pork with perfect crackling?  (You could start it in a hot oven to get the crackling up and then transfer to a slow barbecue, if you don't want to be stuck in a hot kitchen.)

Then luscious tabbouli, dressed with lashings of lemon juice and olive oil, spiked with sea salt, black pepper and the all-important allspice.

And a warm salad of roasted vegies and giant cous cous (easy to prepare - just cook like pasta until tender), dressed with red wine vinegar and olive oil and sprinkled with tangy feta.

A blend of tradition, multiculturalism and modernity - that's the Australia I love.

We did do the Chrissie pudding growing up, and while I do love it, nothing says Australian summer more than good old pav.  If you haven't had it before, pavlova is essentially a giant meringue (made from egg whites and sugar), topped with whipped cream and your choice of seasonal fruit.

I use Stephanie Alexander's recipe which advises flipping the cooked meringue over so you get that wonderful contrast between crisp exterior, fluffy marshmallow meringue middle, cool whipped cream and tangy summer fruits.  SO GOOD.

So there you go - Christmas dinner for eight, sourced with the most seasonal, ethical ingredients available, and all for under $100.  I LOVE FOOTSCRAY!

Disclosure:  I was approached by Footscray Life, a division of Maribyrnong Council, to create a Christmas menu for under $100 with ingredients from Footscray Market and Little Saigon Shopping Centre, with the subsequent piece to appear both on Footscray Food Blog and Footscray Life.  I quoted Footscray Life for my time and was reimbursed for my ingredients.

Recipe inspiration from my own cookbooks, as well as Kylie Kwong's poached chicken and Israeli couscous salad from Two Peas and Their Pod.  Thank you!

Okonomiyaki (aka Japanese pancake)

Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake or pizza) is one of my favourite things.  I wish I could say I discovered it at a quaint wayside inn beside a bubbling brook, somewhere beyond Tokyo, but in fact I first ate them at Highpoint.  These thick vegie-rich pancakes are my shopping centre saviour - made daily, sort of healthy and meal-size for about $4.  When Ajitoya opened in Seddon, giving us a western suburbs counterpart to Fuji Mart or Suzuran, I gathered up all the ingredients to make okonomiyaki at home - and you can too!

You will need:

(Makes two pancakes - recipe adapted from Visual Recipes)

* 1 cup okonomiyaki flour (available from Ajitoya).  This is superfine white flour seasoned with dried seafood and other goodies.  You could possibly vegetarian-ise or frugal-ise it by seasoning white flour yourself (with maybe powdered mushroom, garlic powder etc?)
* 3/4 cup dashi (Japanese bonito stock) or water.  I recommend Spiral Foods dashi above (available from KFL Supermarket in Flemington) which does not have MSG.  You really don't need to use dashi as the flour is seasoned, but I love the extra flavour!
* 1 egg
* Roughly 1/4 cabbage, finely shredded (you may need more)
* 1 carrot, grated
* Neutral oil eg rice bran
* Japanese tonkotsu sauce and Kewpie mayo (pictured below)

Whisk dashi and eggs together (ignore the two eggs - I was doubling the recipe)

Add flour.

Whisk till smooth.

Add cabbage and carrot.  You want it really thick - when it goes in the pan, it needs to sit in a clump, not spread out like a regular pancake.  Just keep adding and mixing until it is a good, thick mixture like the above.

Heat a frypan, add oil (about 1 or 2 Tb) and add a big dollop of mixture.  Push the sides in a bit so it's nice and circular.  You could make more pancakes that are less tall, but I like the contrast between crispy ends and soft, doughy middle.

It is hard to get the timing right so you don't burn the sides or end up with an uncooked centre.  I experimented by adding the mixture in on high, cooking for a couple of minutes then turning it down low.  After about 5-10 minutes, flip and repeat.  You need the top and bottom to be crispy but the middle cooked.  I stuck a knife in and if batter was still welling up, I kept cooking.  Eventually a tiny bit of batter still looked wet, but I took it off the heat, left to stand  for 5 mins and it was done upon eating.  Each pancake probably take about 20 minutes total to be done all the way through.  Sorry to be vague - I am really much more an eatie-foodie than a cookie-foodie!

Put pancake on plate and take tonkotsu (fruity BBQ-style) sauce and Japanese Kewpie mayo (sorry about crusty, well-loved bottle)...

...quickly squeeze squiggles over in perpendicular fashion.  Serve with greens (preferably dressed with addictive creamy toasted sesame dressing, also from Ajitoya).

Yuuuummmmmy....  The cabbage becomes soft but doesn't have any stinky boiled cabbage smell.  The pancake is soft in the middle yet tantalisingly crispy on the edges, while the BBQ sauce and mayo combine to give it creamy, tangy flavour punch.  You can cut it into wedges and sell it to the kids as pizza and mine absolutely love it.

I think really authentic okonomiyaki is a bit different - some have topping cooked onto it while in the pan (hence Japanese pizza) while others have bonito flakes and other goodies on top.  I like my simple version though, and it does beat the Highpoint version!

Local identity Nick Ray (of the Ethical Consumer Guide) is putting together a new project called Local Harvest.  Among other things, it will comprise a directory of sustainable food links such as food co-ops. community gardens, pick-your-own schemes, all aimed at connecting you with your food on a more grass roots level, bypassing the handful of multinational corporations who control a lot of our food.  They need funds at the moment to meet their fundraising target to get off the ground - see widget to the right, or check out the website.

A foul breakfast from Syria

I remember being told at school, "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, and wit is the lowest form of intelligence".  I thought it sounded so debonair, so Oscar Wilde, and liked to roll it around in my mind like a boiled lolly in my mouth.  The truth was I didn't really know what it meant and now I probably agree with the former but not the latter.  I don't know where my love of puns would fit on this scale although I think it would be fairly subterranean.  Anyway, I find the most common transliteration of the Arabic "ful" or broad beans - "foul" - inordinately funny.  These come canned and some tins read "foul medammes" (from mudammas, Arabic for stewed) which of course looks like "foul madams" and is rather amusing.  Well, to me anyway.  Moving right along...

Ful or dried broad beans are served many different ways across the Arab world, from the more Levantine whole version to thick, rich mashes in Egypt and Sudan, often mixed with red lentils aka masoor dal (masoor from Misr, Arabic for Egypt, hence "Egyptian lentils").  This is a recipe from my friend S who is a Kurd from Syria.  It is a gorgeous, fast, healthy, vegetarian breakfast.

Ful
1 425g can broad beans
1/3 cup natural yoghurt
1 Tb (20 mL) tahini
30 mL lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon, juiced)
Salt
1 tomato, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
Finely chopped parsley
Olive oil, about 1 Tb

Buy canned ful from any Middle Eastern-style grocer - these were from Big Trade, the supermarket in Footscray Market, but also try John's Nuts in Paisley Street.  Tip out the liquid quickly but don't drain them fully (fully, LOL), rather, fill the can back up with water so you have about half juice, half water.  Tip into a pot and heat slowly.

Meanwhile, make the sauce by mixing yoghurt, tahini and lemon, beating well to get rid of lumps and seasoning with a little salt.  Incidentally if you add crushed garlic to this, you have the best-ever sauce for felafel wraps.

Put hot beans in bowl, top with sauce, sprinkle with tomato, parsley and garlic and drizzle olive oil all over.  Eat with pita bread (buy it fresh daily from Masters Fruit & Vegie in Footscray Market or the halal butcher on the corner of Irving and Nicholson).  We had actually eaten all the pita bread the night before - really fresh pita is so delicate and seductive, and really needs no sauce at all - so we made do with this fabulous ciabatta from Blu Cow Deli (made even more fabulous by costing $2.95).

Eating the ful with ciabatta reminded me of once in New York eating a very similar breakfast dish made with marinated chickpeas.  I was at the home of a beautiful Lebanese family and early that cold winter morning, the father went out and returned with a huge bag of bagels.  Eating traditional Jewish bread with an Arab salad, pinching up tangy, garlicky chickpeas with a poppyseed bagel, was just a small expression of a desire for sectarian harmony and a memory that has stayed with me ever since.