Lower Your Expectations: July 2011

My friend asked me to make lunch since he is leaving tomorrow. Since it's a Sunday and I didn't really have anything planned, I said yes. He asked for my pasta in white sauce and I thought I'd do a smokey little twist to it. I also thought I'd do a new recipe. I've never done this one before but I've done something similar and I thought it was simple enough. Things went wrong though when I discovered that my pork was too thick and uneven and I couldn't find a chef's mallet. The idea was to make a lemon pork schnitzel but the butcher gave me pork that was just too thick. Anyway, it wasn't a total disaster as my friends liked it though they did find my sauce a bit too sweet. However, I still wasn't pleased with the result. I figure I could improve on this by chopping the almond flakes and using a deep fryer with thinner slices of pork.

Here are the recipes:

Smokey Blue Cream Sauce

1 slab - creamy blue cheese
grated smoked gouda
epicurean cheddar (this tastes extra sharp)
smoked pepperoni
pepperoni
2 small tubs of thickened cream
2 large brown mushrooms

Breaded pork cutlets (originally intended to be schnitzels)

sliced pork
almond flakes
tabouli mix
bread crumbs
eggs
salt lemon juice

Lemon sauce

3/4 cup sugar (this turned out to be too sweet - a half cup would do)
4 lemons juiced
zest from 1 lemon
1 tablespoon corn starch
butter for finishing

And here are the photos:

almond flakes

tabouli mix - made of chopped parsley, mint, tomato, spring onion, dried lemon.

fresh lemons

fresh bread crumbs - this was still warm when i got it.

as the pork was too big, i had to slice it into smaller cuts.

the pork was too thick so i had to pound it with the back of my knife. i would've used a chef's mallet but every shop here is out of stock.

i marinated the pork in freshly-squeezed lemon juice & salt

beat the eggs

tabouli mixed with almond flakes and bread crumbs.

the ingredients are ready! let the breading begin!

breading the pork

they're ready to fry!

we didn't have a deep fryer so i pan-fried the pork.

pork is cooked! unfortunately, some pieces had their breading fall off.

mixing the lemon sauce.

boiling the noodles

browning the mushrooms

the pepperoni - 2 types

simmering the sauce

mixing in the cheeses - grate the cheese first to let it melt faster.

lunch is served!

Well, that was my Sunday. Tomorrow, I fly out so I'd be out for a few days. Enjoy!

East New Britain is not located anywhere close to Europe. It is half of an island called New Britain and is a province of Papua New Guinea. It was a colony of Germany back in the late 1800's but evidence of the Germans having occupied the area is now hard to find. The British took it over at the turn of the 20th century and after World War II, it was given to the Australians. Historically, it has played a vital part in Papua New Guinea's history as this was where the move for independence started. This was also the main trading area for the New Guinea and was a vital part of the country's economy up until the disastrous eruptions in 1994. This area is also considered to be the birthplace of the country's music industry and is where the PNG Chinese originated from.

There are plenty of things to do in ENB. I will let the pictures here speak for themselves. There are plenty of choices now too for lodging to which my favourite would be the Rapopo resort. It is a bit far from Kokopo though and you would definitely need a car to make the daily commute to town if you choose to stay there. Here is a list of things you can do here:

snorkeling around corals of Baining
fishing is fantastic behind the airport and over at Baining
watch the Baining fire walkers
attend mask festival
spelunking around the tunnels - there are a lot of tunnels here including large tunnel systems with internal railway systems
climb the lighthouse
climb tavurvur if you're crazy enough and have good shoes
look for large eggs of wild fowl by Tavurvur
go to the old Nonga submarine base
check out the World War II museum in Kokopo
go up the Rabaul Volcano Observatory
have a picnic at Blue Lagoon
go off-roading in the sand dunes close to the volcano
look for exotic timber such as rosewood, kwila, and walnut (I had a local furniture company fashion 2 walnut speaker stands for only K150 which took them 3 days)
eat exotic crustaceans that would cost a fortune in other countries
wait for mango season and try the apple mango, matupit mango, turpentine mango, rabaul long mango or the normal mango. yes! this is mango haven!
harvest some galip nuts, sprinkle with salt & sugar and enjoy!
have some taro delights! the volcanic soil imparts a nice flavour to it!