Burmese Golden Egg Curry and Part-Time Happenings

Last September I started working part-time. I quit full-time work. I wanted more time to do things that I enjoyed rather than working for the man all the time. I was lucky that a part-time job opportunity came up when my colleague returned from maternity leave and only wanted to work two days a week, so now I job-share working 3 days a week as a policy analyst in government. I had no game plan for what I would do when I started working part-time, but many interesting projects and opportunities have come up. Even though I work part-time, I am busier than ever!

I thought I would share what I get up to in my life outside of blogging :)

I have been a part of the TEDxPerth committee since October 2012 and we organised our first large scale full day event last December. Plans currently are underway for our second full day event this year which will be on 26 October 2013.  We recently did a live stream of TEDGlobal at Spacecubed.

 

(photo taken by Kira Rikkers)

 Here I am with my TEDxPerth crew at the entry of The Vault at Spacecubed at TEDXPerthLive 13.6.2013.

In December last year, an expression of interest to host Eat Drink Blog 4 was placed on the Eat Drink Blog website. Eat Drink Blog is the Australian Food and Drink Bloggers Conference. The inaugural Eat Drink Blog conference was held in Melbourne in 2010, Sydney hosted in 2011 and last year the conference was in Adelaide. I discussed the possibility of hosting the fourth Eat Drink Blog conference in Perth with other WA food bloggers, and there was wide support and interest in bringing the conference west. I put together our submission and on 22 January 2013 it was announced on the website that Perth would host Eat Drink Blog 4! 

I am chair of the Eat Drink Blog 4 organising committee. It’s very exciting to be bringing the national Australian food and drinks bloggers conference to Perth. It has been more work than I thought it would be, the committee has faced challenges but we are working our way through them. Slowly but surely the conference is starting to come together and we hope to make some announcements in a few weeks. 

Thanks to the Eat Drink Blog 3 Adelaide committee for giving Perth the opportunity to host Eat Drink Blog this year. Special thanks to Christina (co-chair of Eat Drink Blog 3) who has provided helpful advice to me during the submission process and handover of Eat Drink Blog.

 (www.eatdrinkblog.org)

I am currently doing the RTRFM  radio training course. Fulfilling a dream of mine to one day be on the radio playing my favourite tunes, stuff that you wouldn’t hear on any other radio station but RTRFM as it’s the sound alternative. At the moment I am listening to a lot of post-metal \m/ Everything might sound natural and spontaneous on the radio, but I’ve learnt that it’s everything but! I’ve gained a lot more respect for anyone who does radio because behind the scenes there is a lot of hard work and planning. I’m still working on my radio voice. 

I have also just become a food curator for Urban Locavore along with Grace. Grace and I worked on the Beaufort Street Festival cookbook last year and it’s great to be working together again. Urban Locavore is a small Western Australian business that aims to discover, promote and share food made and grown by Western Australian producers who source most or all of their ingredients locally. Each month Urban Locavore curates a Tasting Box featuring seven to nine of Western Australia’s best products and delivers them to people in the Perth metropolitan area or boxes can be picked up at our store in Osborne Park.

So I am pretty busy these days but happy to be doing the things I am involved in, and also the poorest I have been in a long time. TEDxPerth, Eat Drink Blog and radio are all things that I am volunteering my time to and for Urban Locavore at the moment, I work for food. Urban Locavore is still a relatively new small business operating on a shoe string and are not in a position pay for staff now but I get to consume lots of amazing local produce every week. Grace and I are on board to help the business grow, we have lots of exciting plans for events and a bigger store. Grace and I often talk about how one day we’ll be able to give up our day jobs!
 
Right now I’m trying to absorb as much as I can. I'm doing whatever interests me, building up skills and knowledge along the way, and then I’ll see what I can do with myself. 

As can you imagine, I am on a budget these days. I have been eating out less and cooking a home a lot more. Making more use of my pantry, produce that my parents give me from their restaurant and also items from the Urban Locavore Tasting Boxes.

(Urban Locavore goodies come in a box of hay - Margaret River Free Range Eggs)

In the May Urban Locavore Tasting Box there were beautiful eggs from Margaret River and a recent edition of SBS Feast magazine featured a Burmese Golden Egg Curry. It looked amazing and I asked my Burmese friend MM from high school if she had cooked this dish before and she told me that it tastes better with the addition of ground dried shrimp, and also advised to cook the shallots for longer until it was soft and caramelized. She also recommended putting some ground paprika in at the same time as the turmeric in the oil that the eggs got fried in to give more colour.
 
So I have used the recipe from SBS Feast magazine as a base and adapted it, incorporating MM’s suggestions.
 
Burmese Golden Egg Curry

Ingredients

•    6-7 small dried shrimp (or enough to make 2 teaspoons of ground dried shrimp)
•    peanut oil
•    ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
•    ¼ teaspoon ground paprika
•    3 large shallots, finely chopped
•    4 garlic cloves, crushed
•    5 tomatoes, finely chopped
•    ½ teaspoon ground chilli
•    ¼ cup water or chicken stock
•    1 tablespoon fish sauce
•    salt to taste
•    3 green bird’s eye chillies, deseeded and sliced
•    4 large eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
•    chopped coriander for garnish

Method

Prepare the dried shrimp – soak in hot water for 30 minutes until softened, then finely chop and roast in oven for 10 minutes at 150C.

 

(finely chopping dried shrimp)

 

(roasted ground dried shrimp)

In a small saucepan that can fit in 4 eggs, fill with 3-4cm of peanut oil and heat over medium heat to 180C. 

Add ground turmeric and paprika, and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant. Lower the hard boiled eggs into the oil and fry them, using chopsticks to turn them around until they are golden all over and blistered. Remove and drain on paper towel. Slice eggs in half.

Heat up a wok and spoon in 3-4 tablespoons of the oil the eggs were fried in. Add the shallots and cook for 5-6 minutes until soft and caramelized, then add garlic and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Then add the tomatoes, ground chilli and ¼ cup of water or chicken stock, and cook, stirring continuously, for 10 minutes until the tomatoes have softened. Stir in the fish sauce, green chillies and 1 teaspoon of ground dried shrimp. Season to taste with salt. 

Place eggs, cut-side down, in the sauce and cook for 3 minutes or until heated through.

Spoon the sauce and eggs onto a plate, scatter with chopped coriander, ground dried shrimp and serve with steamed rice.

Note: It’s also great with toasted bread!