Day 1. - Recreating LOTF

Ahh, nothing like a brand new laptop to get me back into the swing of blogging!
No dilly dallying around, so I will get straight into it.
Lately I have been feeling a little 'home-sick'. And by home sick I mean Melbourne sick! I have never lived there, but I kinda feel like I was born to live there, you know?
Anyway, a huge part of my love for Melbs is credited to Lord Of The Fries. Seriously. Oh. My. God. I would eat it everyday if I could. I would never live past 35 and be a walking blimp, but I would die happy, with a chilli popper in each hand!
So today whilst trying to think of inspiration for a delicious dinner, and procrastinating on fb, I came across a pic of one of our regular visits to LOTF on our holiday, and though you know what? I can do that.
And so I did.
Basically our staple meal at LOTF included the following; burger (I recreated Chick'n), fries, nougats, onion rings, potato cakes, and most importantly chilli poppers! (See what I mean about the potential to become a walking blimp?) Whilst we were over the sauce of the month was 'The Munich', currywurst sauce, which we slathered over everything.
Anyways, see here my super lazy attempt at recreating a little piece of Melbourne, right here, in Perth, WA.
Please note, I am only putting amounts in where necessary, most of it is to taste/common sense!

Burger:
Ingredients
Soft white burger buns
Fry's Vegetarian Chicken Style Burger Patties
Lettuce, sliced
Pickles, thinly sliced
Onions, thinly sliced into rings
Mayo - at the moment we are using Melrose Organic Sunflower Mayonaise (egg free, dairy free, gluten free, cholesterol free, but not taste free!)
American mustard
Tomato sauce

Method
Step 1. Fry patty.
Step 2. Construct burger.

Hard I know!

Onion Rings;
Ingredients
Onions, sliced to desired thickness
Soy Milk
Flour
Panko Breadcrumbs
Cayenne Pepper (because you know I like it hot)
Salt & Pepper

Method
Soak onions in soy milk whilst preparing crumbage.
Combine flour, panko breadcrumbs, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper, and whisk together.
Half fill a saucepan (or if you are lucky deep fryer) with oil of choice - I used vegetable oil, and turn heat between med and high.
Toss the onion in the crumby mix - try not to do too many at once, you don't want them to clump together!
Test 1 onion first, you want it to instantly start bubbling as soon as you drop it into the oil. Don't try to cram too many in at a time, like I said - clumping is bad!
Once golden brown, remove from oil and set aside to drip dry on a plate lined with paper towels. We want greasy but not TOO greasy!

Potato Cakes;
Ingredients
Potatoes, skin on, washed and sliced, thin, but not too thin, you want cakes people, not crisps!
Onion Milk from above
Crumbing mix from above

Method
Sage advice kids, all good things must soak. Including these potatoes! You should probably do this first before starting any other aspect of this meal.
Drain off the water, and dip the sliced potato in the milk used for the onions, then toss into above crumb mix, really pressing the crumbs into the the potato so it sticks.
Drop into the hot oil, these will take a little longer than the onion rings, and its really a judgement call, it needs to be golden brown, and tender in the middle.

For the chips and nuggets I just oven baked store bought stuff, I tried out Redwood Vegi Deli organic bio nuggets. To be honest, they were super bland, thick outer cases and a tiny squishy 'nugget' inside. They were a waste of cash (the organic label means they retail around $8.00) and we definately could have gone without!

Munich Sauce;
Ingredients
1/2 c Tomato ketchup
2 tsp Curry Powder

Method
Heat curry powder in small pot until fragrant, and stir in sauce.
Take off heat and use on everything! Proportions of curry to ketchup is completely up to you, tinker if you must!

The last and most important part of this meal was the chilli poppers!
Ingredients
Red & Green chilli's, enough for 1 each (or more than 1!)
Vegan Cream Cheese of choice, I used Sheese Cheddar style spreas, but would probably choose a different one next time
Onion Milk from above
Crumb Mix from above

Method
Cut off the tops of the chilli's and hollow out the insides, scraping the seeds out. Fill them with cheese spread. After painstakingly forcing cheese into all if them I saw a really good idea on Google, pipe it like frosting!
I froze them whilst tending to other parts of the dinner to stop the cheese from melting.
These again were dipped into the onion milk, then pressed into the crumb mix. I tried 1 layer of crumbs first, and the crumb mix pretty much came off as soon as it was dropped into the oil. If at first you dont succeed, crumb and crumb again! For the remaining poppers I triple crumbed them! And they worked perfectly.
Crispy on the outside, the burst of cheese when you bite into them, this my friend, is heaven! Until things went horribly wrong. The heat hit me like a steam train, it was like accidentally turning on your radio at max volume and then being brutally kicked in the face by the sound.
Red face, watering eyes, I was reduced to holding soy milk into my mouth for minutes at a time. I really try to avoid that. Lucky it was Vitasoy Organic Original, the best of a bad bunch I like to think. Crisis averted! So lesson learned, next time I will try a more mild chilli, or maybe a paprika, how embarrassing! I pride my self in my ability to handle hot food but those poppers truly made me their bitch.

Anyway slap this plethora of fried foods together and you have what M and I ate almost daily in Melbourne. I came home looking like Fat Betty!
Pictures below, its a little sad the only green thing on the plate is the small amount of lettuce in our burgers!


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