Huli Huli Chicken Wings

Aloha friends and welcome to 2024! Whilst most of us are looking ahead, I am reflecting on the last “20 Years Ago Today” post I wrote. In that post, I said, “couscous is the only food I can think of where the same letters are repeated”. The very next day, I was searching through my file of blog-worthy recipes.  And, found a recipe for Huli Huli Chicken Wings. So, we are taking a little trip back to 1950’s Hawaii for a taste test! Never let it be said that I am not happy to prove myself wrong in the search for delicious food.  

Huli-Huli-Chicken-Wings

If someone else hadn’t already come up with the catchphrase of “finger licking good” I’d be using it right now to describe these wings. The Huli Huli sauce is so good!  It’s sweet and sour and full of umami and sticky and just plain delicious.  I made these a little while ago and as I am writing this now my mouth is watering thinking about them!  Guess what’s going back on the menu for next week! 

Huli Huli Chicken Wings2

Huli Huli Huh?

Ernest Morgado, the founder of the Pacific Poultry Co served his mum’s teriyaki-style chicken to a group of farmers back in 1955.  They loved it and he decided to market it as Huli Huli Chicken.  Huli means “turn” in Hawaiian.  The original way of cooking this was to place the chicken between two racks and to grill it, preferably over charcoal.  It was turned during cooking hence, huli huli! 

Schools and other charities often sold Huli Huli chicken as a fundraising item.  In Australia, outside every Bunnings (large hardware store) we also have fundraising food stalls.  We get the cheapest sausages imaginable, slapped into usually dry and equally cheap white bread, some BBQ’ed onions if you want them, and some sauce.  It is usually revolting but there is something about that BBQ aroma that draws you in, even though you know it you will regret it as soon as you take that first bite.  

I think Australian fundraisers could learn a lot from the Hawaiian way of doing things.  I mean, why have this?

When you could have this?

Huli Huli Chicken Wings3

Huli Huli Chicken Recipe

My recipe comes directly from the Australian Women’s Weekly website.  You can find it here  but I have noticed that many websites are now blocking links from blogs.  So I have also copied it out below:

Huli Huli Chicken 1

 

Huli Huli Chicken 3

Huli Huli Chicken 4

I can also heartily recommend the pineapple salad that accompanies the Huli Huli chicken wings in the above recipe.  To me, it was the perfect fresh and zesty offset to the sweetness of the chicken.  And that hit of chilli in the salad somehow brought everything together!

Well, if this is the standard of cooking I get when I prove myself wrong, I am willing to be proved wrong again and again! Please let me know if you can think of any others! Otherwise, have a great week!

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Zero Waste – Basil Bellini

Greetings friends! Today is a quick post on a variation to the Rosemary Bellini I posted a few weeks ago.  The Basil Bellini came about as I had a few peaches leftover from making the Rosemary Bellini.  Rather than letting them go to waste, I thought I would make some of  Kylee Newton’s Peach and Basil Lemonade with them. Basil Bellini2Kylee’s recipe is delicious peachy basil-y lemonade that is so refreshing on hot days!  However, in her recipe (below) you need to strain out and discard the solids after blitzing.   But, those same solids are actually a delicious puree of peach and basil!  In my opinion, it was far too tasty to go to waste…y. (Sorry)

And so I made it into a hasty Basil Bellini! 

Basil Bellini

I added a spoonful of that peach and basil mix into a glass of sparkling and voila…a Basil Bellini!  

A side advantage of the basil bellini is that you can have the kudos of making your kids homemade peach and basil lemonade and also have quiet mummy (or daddy) juice on the side!  You could also add some of the strained mixture into your sparkling wine but then you would miss that little frisson of smug of also being zero waste!

Peach and Basil Lemonade Recipe

This comes from Kylee Newton’s book The Modern Preserver which I cannot recommend highly enough!

Peach and Basil Lemonade

I hope your week is just peachy!

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Dec 03 – Make Mine A Double

Hello, retro food lovers and Season’s Greetings from 2003!  This month I am using Delicious Magazine from December 2003 to prepare a menu where…well let’s see if you can guess…Hint..there’s a big clue in the title. 

The whole time I was cooking this month I also kept thinking back to my early twenties when we used to play a drinking game called “I’m going to the moon”.  The person who starts says “I’m going to the moon and I’m taking (for example) an apple”.  Then the next person says “I’m going to the moon and I’m taking a pear”.  The first person who is the game controller tells them if they can come to the moon or not.  If they can’t go, they need to stay on earth and have a drink.   There are many variations on this game but my personal favourite was based on the same theme as this month.  Let’s move away from my sozzled past to see what was happening in December 2003.  Although come to think about it, that was probably the same time as I was playing the game!

The Lord of The Rings:  Return of the King was the big movie of December 2003.  The Last Samurai was the next biggest.  And, quelle surprise, The Da Vinci Code was still the best-selling book.  Which all kind of explains why I was playing drinking games instead of partaking in pop culture.  Although the soundtrack to those drinking games would have been good with Here Without You and Hey Ya! being the number one songs that month!  

Moorish Champagne Cocktail1

The Menu – December 2003

Moorish Champagne Cocktail

Moorish Champagne Cocktail

I am always very happy to be able to start these menus with a cocktail.  The Moorish Champagne Cocktail was both easy to make and also very more-ish!  

Moorish Champagne Cocktail2

 

Moorish Champagne Tart Recipe

Dec 2003 - Moorish Champagne Cocktail Recipe

Salad of Dried Pears, Proscuitto, Blue Cheese and Walnuts

AKA a salad of a few of my favourite things!  If this hadn’t fit the theme, it would have surely been my Nigella item for this month!  And it was divine!

Salad of Dried Pears

Salad of Dried Pears, Proscuitto, Blue Cheese and Walnuts Recipe

Salad of Dried Pears recipe2

 

Salad of Dried Pears 2

Grilled Salmon with Thai Green Risotto

I apologise for the photo of this which is not great.  Having said this, the photo from the mag (which follows the recipe) is also not great.  Neither photo does this dish, which was amazing any justice!  But, trust me, it is worth taking a punt on as it was delicious! Grilled Salmon with Thai Green Risotto

 

Grilled Salmon with Thai Green Risotto Recipe

Grilled Salmon with Thai Green Risotto recipe (1)

 

Mulled Wine Sorbet With Clove Biscuits

This was so nice and refreshing.  It is summer in Australia so this is a nice nod to wintry flavours but adapted for summer.  The sorbet mixture was very soft, for me it was more like a slushie than a sorbet so my recommendation is either not to serve it on a very hot day or to eat it quickly as it melts in moments.  Speaking of melting, the clove biscuits just melt in your mouth!  I am usually a bit wary of cloves – I’ve bit into them accidentally when eating things like curries and find the flavour a bit too much!  So, for the first few biscuits, I ate, I picked the cloves off. Since then, I have eaten them with the clove in and the flavour of them seems to be less powerful in the biscuits than in say a curry.  So, even if you don’t love cloves, give these a try with them!

Mulled Wine Sorbet with Clove Biscuits

Mulled Wine Sorbet with Clove Biscuits Recipe

Mulled Wine Sorbet with Clove Biscuits recipe (1)

My Nigella Moment  – Crispy Herbed Potatoes

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious.  In these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in because it is too good not to share.  

You had me at crispy potatoes!  And then when I saw how pretty these were, I knew they would be my Nigella item for this month.  If I hadn’t already bought what I needed to make Katrina Meynink’s Roasted Taters with Horseradish and Tapenade for Christmas Day, the Crispy Herbed Potatoes would have been on the menu.  (As an aside, I have just bought the aforementioned book From Salt to Jam and am absolutely loving it).  

Dec 2003 - Crispy Seared Potatoes3Crispy Seared Potatoes Recipe

Crispy Herbed Potatoes (1)

Overall a great month from Delicious December 2003.  If you have not yet guessed the theme, no going to the moon for you!  But in the interest of your liver, it was to find recipes with double letters.  Until I did this, I had never really thought about how many food items had these.  I was absolutely spoiled for choice with options:

(Update 6/1/24 – I had originally included links to items below that are still on the Delicious.com.au website.  Those links have been blocked but anything I have asterisked is available should you want to check them out.)

Starters

  • Baked eggs
  • Bruschetta with grilled artichokes and roasted garlic
  • B’stilla*
  • Cheese Crock
  • Chilled pea soup with lobster and risoni salad*
  • Goat’s curd in grappa*
  • Prawn and fattoush salad
  • Schiacciata*
  • Spanner crab chowder
  • Peppered Beef Salad
  • Smoked Salmon with clementines and cress
  • Terrine with microwave cranberry chutney

Mains and Sides

  • Beef fillet with spicy potatoes and horseradish
  • Butternut pumpkin with tasty stuffing
  • Cheeky Christmas turkey with braised leeks and the best wine gravy
  • Chicken noodle salad
  • Chicken with pepperoncini
  • Cinnamon and sultana couscous
  • Cold turkey salad with mango and honey dressing
  • Country chicken and mushroom pies
  • Chicken coconut curry pie
  • Crispy skin coral trout with roasted pineapple, coconut salad and rosti potato
  • Fillets of John Dory with olives, capers and rosemary
  • Flame grilled tuna with wasbi cake, bok choy and lime ponzu
  • Fricassee of chicken with mustard and grapes
  • Grilled coral trout with asparagus, red capsicum and sugar snap peas
  • Rice paper rolls with turkey
  • Seared barramundi with garlic skordalia, asparagus and creole salsa
  • Traditional Barossa ham in verjuice jelly
  • Turkey with saffron butter and preserved lemon and olive stuffing
  • Baked zucchini tarts with stuffed vegetables
  • Frisee, watercress and witlof salad
  • Goat’s cheese tarts with roast peaches and vincotto
  • Moroccan carrot salad
  • Open lasagne of asparagus with rocket tortellini
  • Roasted eggplant and tomato salad
  • Savoury Summer puddings
  • Sweet potato briks
  • Truffled potato mash

Sweets

  • Baked lime cheesecake
  • Boozy puddings with cheat’s custard*
  • Cherry clafoutis*
  • Choc-mint raspberry sundae
  • Chocolate and strawberry tartines*
  • Chocolate and brandied prune terrine*
  • Christmas morning muffins*
  • Christmas pudding ice cream with sweet cranberry sauce
  • Cinnamon ice cream with red wine poached figs*
  • Chocolate cake with plum pudding vodka*
  • Coconut and passionfruit slice
  • Eggnog custards*
  • Flourless Hazelnut roulade
  • Free-form berry trifles
  • Middle Eastern fruit cake*
  • Pannettone with berries and brandy sauce
  • Passionfruit panna cotta*
  • Raspberry ice cream sundae
  • Snowballs*
  • Starry night tarts*
  • Star-topped mince pies
  • Strawberry sundae*
  • Tutti Frutti ice cream*
  • Vanilla sponge with raspberries
  • White Chocolate and chilli ice cream with tropical fruit

Other

  • Hettie Potter’s suet-free mince meat
  • Easy cranberry sauce
  • Peanut Butter sauce
  • Raspberry sauce
  • Strawberry sauce
  • Irish coffee with orange rind and vanilla

 

Sorry for the massive laundry list but I really wanted to show how many items had double letters!  I was honestly astounded! 

So, my question to you lovely readers is – if you were making your own double-letter dinner, what would you choose? Either from the extensive list above or things that have not been mentioned – baguettes, beetroot, jelly, waffles, green beans, toffee, frittata, dill, mayonnaise, cabbage, spaghetti, mozzarella…the list goes on!

Couscous which is in the list above is the only thing I could think of with the same series of letters twice.  Can you think of any others?

And one last thing.  Thank you all for reading and commenting through the year!  Best wishes for an amazing 2024!

 

 

 

Sparkling Cyanide – Rosemary Bellini

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  This month our menu is a tribute to the late Rosemary Barton, one of the characters in Agatha Christie’s Sparkling Cyanide.  We are remembering Rosemary with a Rosemary Bellini.  We’ll get to her in a moment but first let’s take a moment to ponder the US title which was Remembered Death.  Now, why on earth when you have an AMAZING title like Sparkling Cyanide, would you change it to something as humdrum as Remembered Death? 

Sparkling Cyanide Photo 1

 

Sparkling Cyanide – The Plot

“Six people were thinking of Rosemary Barton who had died nearly a year ago…”

Agatha Christie – Sparkling Cyanide

A year before the novel is set the lovely Rosemary Barton and six of her family and friends gathered for dinner at the swanky Luxembourg Hotel. Rosemary collapsed and died during the dinner.  The coroner’s verdict was that she committed suicide due to depression after a bout of flu. (I was quite surprised to hear that depression from the flu was considered a thing back in the day.  I guess now with long covid, we are seeing much the same thing but under a different name).

Six months before the novel is set, Rosemary’s husband, George gets a series of anonymous letters saying that Rosemary was murdered.  George hatches a plot to find her killer by having another dinner at The Luxembourg exactly one year after Rosemary’s death with the same people attending.

Dumb idea?  Totally.  Because George dies of cyanide poisoning on the night.  

Making one of the dinner guests the murderer of both people.  If George was killed because he was getting too close to the truth,  who, at the table wanted Rosemary dead?  Turns out, everyone has a motive!

We have:

  • Iris Marle, Rosemary’s sister.  She stood to inherit her sister’s considerable fortune
  • George himself may have killed Roseary as he had discovered she was having an affair.  Did he do himself in out of guilt?
  • The enigmatic Anthony Browne threatened Rosemary with death.  Did he poison her to keep her quiet about his shady past?
  • Stephen Farraday, a politician whose career was on the up was having an affair with Rosemary.  Did he kill her to avoid a public scandal if she revealed their dalliance?
  • Lady Alexandra (Sandra) Farraday, Stephen’s wife had a great reason for wanting Rosemary dead.  She wanted to keep her husband. 
  • Ruth Lessing George’s secretary who has a crush on George and hates Rosemary

Good thing we have Co lonel Race on hand to bring the killer to justice!

Sparkling Cyanide Photo 2

The Moving Finger – The Covers

Sparkling Cyanide collage
Sparkling Cyanide collage

 

I was so happy to find a load of covers for Sparkling Cyanide and so many non-English covers!   However…Portugal and France both seem to have confused champagne for martinis as covers from both countries feature glasses containing olives. 

 

The Recipe – Rosemary Bellini

Print

Sparkling Cyanide – Rosemary Bellini

A lovely twist on a traditional Bellini

Ingredients

Scale
  • 4 peaches (I like white peaches but you can use yellow if you prefer them)
  • 6 springs of rosemary
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 tbsp caster sugar plus more for garnish
  • 1/2 glass white wine, prosecco, sparkling wine, orange juice or water
  • 1 bottle champagne

Instructions

  • Halve the peaches
  • Place the peach halves and two of the rosemary sprigs into a saucepan with the sugar and the 1/2 glass of wine / prosecco / juice water
  • Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar has melted and the peaches are soft. 
  • Cool the peach mixture then puree.

Frosted Rosemary Garnish

  • Lightly beat the egg white
  • Take the 4 remaining rosemary sprigs and dip them in the egg white then dredge them in the caster sugar.
  • Set aside.

Assembly

  • When you are ready to serve, place a dollop of the peach puree into the bottom of a cocktail glass.  
  • Top with champagne and give a light stir.
  • Garnish each glass with a frosted rosemary spring.

Enjoy!

 

Every murderess was a nice girl once

 Sparkling Cyanide – Agatha Christie

 

 

Links To The Christieverse

None that I could find but Colonel Race appears in:

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in  Sparkling Cyanide

January’s Read is Death Comes As The End

      SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS

 

We are told twice that a certain character has no pity in them.  I.e. is the type of person who may resort to murder…

Whose name might indicate that they are this type of person?  

 

 

 

 

Christmas Adelaide Pecan Pie

Hello friends and greetings of the season!  Today’s Christmas Adelaide Pecan Pie comes from Singers and Swingers in the Kitchen.  I last visited that book in 2013!  The recipe comes from Eva Marie Saint, star of On The Waterfront, North by Northwest and many other films. The Christmas Adelaide Pecan Pie is so called because it was a pecan pie, made every Christmas by Eva Marie’s sister Adelaide.

Christmas Adelaide Pecan Pie

You’ll see from the above that a made little pies rather than one big pie.  I had some mini pie crusts in the freezer from another cooking project so I decided to use them up instead of buying a big pastry shell.  Cooking time on the small tarts was 30 minutes.   I also could not find dark corn syrup in my local supermarket. I subbed in a mix of 2/3  golden syrup and 1/3 maple syrup.  Christmas Adelaide Pecan Pie3

Is pecan pie served traditionally at Christmas?  I would love for one of my American readers to tell me?  It feels like it should be  – it certainly makes sense when Christmas falls in winter and fresh fruit is in shorter supply than in the summer months.  

Chrismas Adelaide Pecan Pie Recipe

Christmas Adelaide Pecan Pie

 

Christmas Adelaide Pecan Pie2

If you wanted to double down on recipes from this book, the Christmas Adelaide Pecan Pie would be divine with a scoop of Barbra Streisand’s Coffee Ice Cream.  This might also come in handy if you need a snack while reading Barbra’s nearly 1000-page memoir!  

Singers and Swingers in The Kitchen The Book

Singers and Swingers

This little book is so much fun!  As well as Eva and Barbra, it also includes recipes from The Rolling Stones, Jane Fonda, Don Adams and Barbara Feldman from Get Smart, The Mamas and The Papas, The Monkees and a host more “scene makers”and “groovy gourmets”.  My records…well Amazon’s records show I bought this back in 2012 for a measly $15.  It now regularly sells for over a hundred!!!  If you don’t want to be spending that kind of money, please feel free to browse the archives here for the recipes I’ve already shared.  I’m also sure this won’t be the last time I dip into this book. 

Have a great week!  

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