Work lunches
Monday – I’d been looking forward to eating the pizza left over from Friday. We ate the pizza cold, of course.
J brought in homemade soup for us both to eat with the leftover pizza. It was delicious and comforting, perfect for a cool autumn’s day lunch. And J very generously gave me her recipe to share with you guys – here it is, exactly as written by J:
Orange Soup
by TFP’s workmate JIngredients
1.5 kg Pumpkin (I used the Japanese/Kent variety, because it was available, but Butternut is classic for soup)
4 large Potatoes
Approx. 1 kg Sweet Potato
4 Tomatoes (As ripe as possible)
1 large Onion, diced roughly
1-3 large cloves Garlic (I like my soup quite garlicky)
500-700 ml Chicken stock (I confess, I didn’t make my own … pick a salt-reduced variety)
150 ml Pouring Cream
Nutmeg, Salt and Pepper to taste
Olive oil, about 3 tbMethod
1. Start by dicing all your vegetables into even cubes (to facilitate even cooking … you can tell when soup is blended with some vegies uncooked!)
2. Add the oil to a stockpot, and sweat off the onions (add a pinch of salt and they will release more liquid)
3. Chuck in all your vegies, mix around to warm through.
4. Add stock, plus extra water to ensure all vegies are covered.
5. Bring to boil, simmer until vegies are soft and squishy! (Cooking time can vary, about 30-40 minutes)
6. Take soup off the burner. Using a stick mixer or blender, blend soup until as smooth as you like.
7. Put soup back in stockpot and return to stove. Bring to boil.
8. Add cream, lower heat. Add seasonings to taste.Best served with crusty bread and butter, or crusty garlic toast!
Makes great leftovers that can be frozen for 3-4 weeks (if it lasts that long)!
You can see why J and I get on so well!
Tuesday – J and I went to Munch Terrace (Shop 6, 230 Hay St, Corner Bennett St East Perth). We decided to share two dishes. First, hokkien mee (AU$8.50). It was very dark soy saucy, with cabbage, fish cake, chicken and prawns. Like the laksa from last week, this was a dish you had eat with restraint, sucking the noodles up into your mouth while leaning very close to the plate, to avoid flicking sauce on your shirt.
The hokkien mee came with a dish of rather hot-smelling chilli. I’m impressed that they thought we’d eat it! It was a little too spicy for us. My workmate SRM would scoff at our chilli wussy-ness. I’ve never seen him eat chilli he thought was hot enough. I’d like to see him eat habanero chilli. Though knowing him, he’d just pop them like candy.
We also shared a serve of crispy chicken rice (AU$7.50). The steamed rice had roast duck gravy poured over it – yummy. The little dish of sweet chilli sauce went very well with the chicken. The duck gravy and sweet chilli sauce are what saved the dish from being entirely too dry.
Each bite of the crispy fried chicken was satisfyingly crunchy, yet tender. They know how to fry chicken over at Munch Terrace.
A few people have asked me what other dishes Munch Terrace sells. Here’s the lunch menu. They do have a different menu for dinner, which features slightly different dishes, more Chinese restaurant-style than Malaysian hawker-style.
You may have noticed “with Pork Lad” in brackets next to some of the noodle dishes. Presumably, this means “pork lard” – there were quite a few crunchy croutons of fried pork fat in with the noodles. The pork fat imparts a gorgeous flavour through the whole dish and they taste amazing, even better than roast pork crackling – it’s just a shame it’s so bad for you! We did eat some of the pork fat, but left the last two rather large pieces on the plate (pictured below). This is definitely not an everyday dish! “Pork Lad” makes me think of the Lard Lad from the Simpsons. Heh.
Wednesday – I took a break from those delicious fried fat-laden lunches and had a much lighter and healthier lunch. I brought in some leftover garden salad from home, with cubes of oven-roasted sweet potato…
… which I ate with tuna on crispbread. The tuna was John West tuna in springwater, the crispbread Vita-Weat with 9 Grains. On top of the tuna, I placed sliced fresh tomato and Lebanese cucumber, with a little black pepper. The tomato really was as juicy as it appears in this photo.
J and Chad joined me, so it was like a tuna lunch club. J had smoke-flavoured tuna with Mersey Valley cheese, cucumber and tomato on crispbread.
Chad had tuna in savoury tomato and onion sauce, on sliced Swiss cheese, tomato, salt and pepper on crispbread.
I’m going to try and eat a healthier lunch a couple of times a week (notice the use of the term “healthier”, rather than “healthy”!).
Thursday – I could’ve done the tuna and crispbread thing again, but it was a cold rainy day, and I craved a hot meal. I got myself a large serve (AU$7.00) of meatballs and onion in tomato sauce with rice from 88 Royal (88a Royal St, East Perth). The meatball dish was very homestyle – it reminded me of a dish my late grandma used to cook for us kids all the time – her version consisted of pork meatballs with sliced onions in a savoury tomato sauce. And when I was in high school we made a delicious meatball dish in cooking class – the meatballs had chopped apple in them, and we baked them in a tomato sauce, topped with grated cheese. Also delicious. Anyway, 88 Royal’s tomato sauce meatball dish was fantastic with rice. My nostalgic flashbacks only sweetened my experience. :)
J had a chicken schitzel burger (AU$6.50, or thereabouts) from 88 Royal. The chicken looked crusty and terribly overcooked at first glance, but it was actually really good – beneath the super crunchy coating on the outside was tender white chicken breast. I’d have called it a chicken fillet burger rather than chicken schnitzel burger – the chicken was too thick and meaty to have been schnitzel-ised. The salad was basic but fresh (just tomato and lettuce), and J was most impressed by the eggy taste of the mayonnaise.
