What's for dinner?

An autumn day at Sunnybrae

2009-05-15T10:06:00.008+10:00

Our first wedding anniversary was in late March. To celebrate, Nathan decided to actually listen to my complaining for once, and booked us in for a weekend lunch followed the next day by a class at Sunnybrae restaurant and cooking school in Birregurra.

George Biron reopened his cooking school/ restaurant a year ago, after having being closed for 9 years. I am not old enough to have been in the old days, but I had read enough on his blog and by other food bloggers to know that he cooks my kind of food. His emphasis on using local produce, as well as growing his own vegetables (including olive trees from which olive oil is made, a bee hive, and in the future some oak trees with truffle spores!) struck a chord with Nathan and I and our crazy garden experiment, so it was with great excitement that we headed to Birregurra for the weekend.

And what a glorious autumn weekend it was. Wonderful sunny days filled with food. I really could not ask for more! We had a lunch booked for the Sunday and a class on the Monday…

The menu at Sunnybrae is mostly a set menu with very few decisions, starting with an individual entrée, two shared entrees, a main and a dessert, punctuated throughout with the fabulous potato bread. Decisions can be made on the main, and dessert. And at 66 dollars, I consider this an absolute bargain! We were eating from 1230-430ish, punctuated with a couple of walks around the property to build up more room for the next course, and to check out how the vegetable garden was going. This is such a lovely way to spend a Sunday, relaxing and eating and talking with friends and/ or lovers.

When we were travelling in Europe, Nathan had a saying – ‘you can tell how good a restaurant is by the bread they serve’. This potato bread was just beautiful. And we made it the next day at the class. And then Nathan made it the next weekend. Nath made three loaves! So we must have liked it. Nathans version was a rye based version, but George’s white potato bread was crusty yet soft inside, and though not officially a sourdough, had some sour taste and a nice structure.

We had chosen a local pinot noir to drink with lunch and it was perfect for the food – not too strong in flavour – it supported the food rather than overwhelmed it.

As for the food, I won’t go through each course as I did forget to take photos of everything. I did love the use of edible succulents though, such as in this garden salad.

And Nathan (in the middle of a weird succulent obsession at the moment) did get a cutting of this succulent which is doing well in a pot at home.

Seasonal use of pomegranates which I am loving at the moment at home too. And the jamon in this dish was spectacular.

Comfit of duck with ratatouille

Rabbit fillet in hare sausage with a porcini based sauce (I can’t exactly remember the description of this dish but it was fabulous)

Hungarian pancake with poppy seeds

The food at Sunnybrae involves fresh seasonal produce with simple, fresh flavours that really highlight each ingredient. The use of fruit gelato in the desserts was inspired (and I am jealous of the big ice cream maker he has in the kitchen).

We were seated facing the garden and light was streaming into the dining room. A large book case full of cook books made Nathan a little uncomfortable as he saw me getting excited about all the books (he has currently banned me from buying any more cook books until I start using the ones I have more).
We did not need dinner after this lunch. We stayed the night at nearby Forrest, which is in the Otway’s national park area, and has the delightful Lake Elizabeth – home to platypus and other wildlife. There are also 50km of mountain bike trails which we are yet to sample but another trip to this part of Victoria is definitely on the cards, and not just to eat at Sunnybrae again!

The next morning we were back at Sunnybrae at 930am. George made us an expresso and we were introduced to the other folk taking the course that day. It was great speaking to other people who were basically all there because of a love of food.

The class involved making a 4 course lunch which we all ate together at the end of the class. We started with the bread in order to give it enough resting time. George also showed us how he made his tomato passata using tomatoes from his vegie garden, and some preserved cumquats. The class involved George taking us through the techniques but sharing out the actual work which was a good way to try out what he was saying and to build camaraderie between the participants.

We were also directed to plate our own courses in order to get a feel for presentation. I think mine needs a bit more work…

Though the star anise cured ocean trout was beautiful and well matched with an apple and green pawpaw based salad.

The wood fire had been lit the night before and the oven was at the right temperature for us to bake our potato bread- enough loaves for us to take one home and to eat one with our shared lunch that day too.

Again I did not take photos of everything, though we also made a mussel and blue eye stew, a rabbit stew served with a rice pilaf (the rice pilaf was the winner with us and we have been making it at home since), and dessert, a bay leaf scented rice pudding, which I think I plated up a bit better… (and I was impressed with my sugar burning attempt too)…

I love capturing Nathan flaming food up –

And amusingly enough it involved a rather large blow torch (now that we have a small one at home after I complained against the use of large propane burners in the kitchen!).

I spend a lot of my time thinking about food, reading about food and cooking, but I did pick up a lot of tricks from George during this class, and it was good to use unfamiliar ingredients. I had asked George if we could cook game in the class as I have an un-based fear of cooking unfamiliar meats. Since this course I have cooked up a rabbit at home so it did help. Nathan especially picked up some good ways of shaping bread (Nathan being the master bread maker in our household) and we are super jealous of the wood fired oven.

The class is wonderfully informal, and I asked many questions during the day on anything I could think of. Eating the food with some wine and some conversation at the end of the class is a great way to end it. I think I will be back to Sunnybrae during truffle season! And maybe in asparagus season, there was a very impressive asparagus bed in the garden which I am a bit jealous of. Thankyou to George, Angela and Di for a great weekend.

Creatures from the Deep... or not, Yabbies!

2009-04-22T14:45:00.004+10:00

Growing up in Sydney I never had anything to do with yabbies. Country kids seem to all have some memory of fishing for yabbies, usually involving some sort of meat on a stick/ line and often a disappointing wait for nothing. And this is what I had last year when my husband tried to show me what yabbying was like at his parents property and we got a big fat NOTHING.

Fast forward a year and the west of Victoria did not get any of that rain that Melbourne was enjoying last month, that filled our water tank plus some. It is so dry west of Geelong in this state, we drove past many empty dams, and big fields of brown. All I can say it that is is disappointing and very depressing (even more so for those who live out that way).

On Easter Saturday, I was having a lounge around at my in laws when my mother-in-law told me to grab some wellies and head down to the (empty) dam. Father-in-law had a couple of buckets full of yabbies!

We got two monster yabbies and many little ones (and left many behind- hopefully they dig their way into the mud and wait for the rains).

We soaked them in buckets of fresh water for half a day and then plunged them in boiling water for under a minute. Eaten unadorned, they were very tasty. Not sure I liked the plunging them into their deaths bit but sometimes I guess we need to face the fact we really do eat (once) living creatures. Some people find their taste a bit muddy (hence the need to soak them in fresh water first), but I find it very sweet and juicy. It is rather strange that yabbies have never really been taken seriously as a commercial food stock in this country, when i think they are on par with sea cray and similar. Oh well, all the more for me!

Collingwood Childrens Farm Cafe

2009-04-17T16:25:00.008+10:00

We have gone to the Abbotsford convent precinct quite a few times and have ridden around the Yarra river near the children's farm but I have never actually gone in or eaten there.

A couple of weekends ago we were in the neighbourhood and so we strolled down to check out how the community gardens were doing (quite well! better than ours by the looks of things), when we noticed the cafe. It seemed busy and not having had breakfast yet (and it being 12:30pm) we decided to stop in for that favourite Melbourne meal, 'Brunch'. I have to admit, since discovering how to poach our own eggs, we have not been going out for breakfast very much on weekends, but this was very enjoyable.

The seating consists of some big wooden tables, some smaller tables, and some logs scattered throughout the farm (some quite close to the chickens). Ordering is done at the coffee bar and the menu consists of the usual brunchy items like eggs, pancakes and some other items like salads and a plough mans platter. Being big egg fiends we focused on the egg menu. We decided on some slowly baked beans with a poached egg on top and some oven roasted mushrooms with balsamic, thyme, feta, cherry tomatoes, basil, and a poached egg on top. These were served with some lovely toasted and buttered sourdough which we admired (and compared to Nathans latest sourdough attempts). The winning dish was the mushroom dish (which we then tried to replicate the next day, though i think our feta let us down a bit, see photo at end). The coffees were brilliant and the setting just lovely looking out over the paddocks and the free ranging chickens (and one must admit children running around chasing the geese as they do. Everyone has to learn that geese are evil and will steal your food as soon as look at you. Or is that just me and an unfortunate ice cream misadventure when I was 8?). It is difficult to remember you are actually only about 7km from the Melbourne CBD sitting there on a sunny Saturday. Highly recommended.

Sake and Grill Maedaya, Richmond

2009-04-17T15:59:00.007+10:00

The first time we tried getting into Maedaya we had just done a yoga class and were starving, and the place was packed, with a half hour wait. So we walked on to the Vegetarian Nirvana down the road instead(which is always a good meal).

Next time lucky it was a Wednesday night and we got bar seats right in front of the grill. Action view!

Maedaya does 'izakaya' rather than the more common Melbourne Japanese model of sushi/ sashimi and noodles/ rice. This means most dishes are cooked on a charcoal grill and consists of marinaded meats and vegetables. Generally you order per skewer. The menu is a big laminated photo type menu (not unlike the TGI Friday menu!) which is useful for seeing what you are getting (but I could not help wondering if this means that this place is similar to TGIF for authentic Japanese?)

To begin with they placed a selection of dipping sauces on the table with some flat bread and told us to taste each one and if we particularly like one we could get it in a larger size. The wasabi mayonnaise was my favourite and though I do not remember the other 4 well, we found that the meats were generally well marinated as it was and did not really need more sauce.

From memory (sorry no photos) we ordered some edamane to start and a wakame and rocket salad (which had just the right chilli kick for me and was really tasty). These came from a 'special tapas' menu that the waitress gave us as a little paper specials menu (and then took away which was a bit annoying as i wanted to try more of this stuff).

We then had pork belly skewers which were naughty but tasty, asparagus rolled with pork belly (similar to pancetta rolled asparagus), marinated tofu skewers, shitake mushrooms, eggplant with miso and soft shell crab (not done on the grill - was deep fried). We also got some rice ($2 each). The cost of each item was between $2-4 with the crab being $6 (my memory might not be super accurate here). What I do know is that the entire meal with some green tea cost about $40 (no Sake for us tonight on a school night, though the list was impressive).

Overall I enjoyed dining here. The dining room fit out is interesting, with dark timbers and some random ropes hanging down one wall. The extraction system over the charcoal is quite impressive as at no point did we feel smokey. Sitting at the bar meant we got food straight from the chef as he cooked it which was nice. There were a few blips with the service and the rice came out a bit slowly but in general it was a really pleasant meal. Just a shame that it is usually so crowded or I would go there more! There is more to the menu than we tried, including some noodle dishes and some more 'main meal' style dishes but I think the grill is the way to go here.

Can someone please explain to me why blogger wont let me have spaces between each paragraph? It is very frustrating!

Announcing the arrival of our first born pumpkin!

2009-04-05T12:21:00.002+10:00

Statisitics

Born 4th april

weight 7.5kg

variety unknown (Diggers variety heirloom seed pack)

So, my qustion to you is... what do I do with it?! It is too big for much other than soup i am thinking...

And for pumpkin birthing pros - do i have to age it or harden it or something before i can eat it/ store it?

I did a bad bad thing...

2009-04-01T16:42:00.002+11:00

Tinned corn. red onion, capsicum. a little cheese. red wine vinegar and a dollop of yoghurt.

This was my dinner after a game of netball last night. I had been craving TINNED corn for a little while. it has to be tinned, not frozen, not fresh.

This, after I grew and harvested the sweetest corn I have ever eaten in my life this year. What is wrong with me?

I think the changing of the seasons is doing strange things to my eating habbits. I am craving potatoes, meat pies (?) and really stodgy, dodgy, bad for me food. I just want it to stop so I can just eat soups and vegies from the garden.

what are you craving at the moment that you shouldn't be?

Spring vegetable soup (in autumn)

2009-03-14T19:20:00.008+11:00

There have been a few rather cold and rainy days this March. A little different to the searing heat of February and to last March's heat wave. I am sitting in the dark cold of a Saturday night (maybe I need a life?), with hail outside and me very worried about the vegie garden!

A couple of weeks ago, I made a soup with many of the ingredients from my garden. It is based on a Bill Granger recipe, though I have changed it to suit my garden!

I should also point out that the success of this soup -apart from home grown vegies, is home made chicken stock. Whenever I roast a chook (usually a barossa chook) I use the carcass to make a stock and then freeze it to use in soups, risottos etc. Play around with quantities to suit.

Spring Vegie Soup

serves 4 i guess. we freeze leftovers for later.

big handful of barley (about 150-200g) boiled in water for around 30 minutes until tender, rinsed and drained

2 zucchini diced

1 carrots sliced

1-2 onions diced

cup of peas

1L chicken stock (or vegie stock)

tin of cannelini beans or other similar beans

2 red potatoes diced (i dont peel but you can)

2 garlic cloves, sliced

1 bunch silver beet

bunch of green/ purple or rattle snake beans

salt, pepper and basil, lemon thyme or parsley to top soup

Parmesan cheese to serve

Fry onion in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add potato, zucchini, garlic, silver beet, and cook for 5 minutes until the silver beet has wilted. Add the stock plus 1L water, and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the rinsed barley, beans, cannelini beans and peas and simmer for another 10 minutes. Season and serve with herbs and Parmesan.

Good for cold wintry nights at any time of the year.

Homecoming

2009-03-14T12:37:00.007+11:00

Last weekend we went home to Sydney for a cousins wedding. What was unusual about it was that all my siblings returned for this wedding. We haven't all been together since my wedding early last year and before that about 2 years ago. And we haven't all lived together since I moved out about 7 years ago. My sister is now in London and my brother in remote country NSW...

The crazy thing was, us siblings decided to act like we did about 15 years ago. Talk about regression! It was like we had never left home, or aged. The highlight was the car trip to the airport with the three of us crammed in the back, fighting noisily before all falling asleep. Things never change!

And to celebrate, my mother went into crazy cooking mood. For 5 of us she made this many dishes, most of them Arabic dishes. I forgot to take photos of all the savoury pastries she made as well. Apologies for the photos - I was hungry!

Left -molkeyah and right- bamia. Molkeyah is a green leafy vegetable -leaves pulled of the plant 'jute' (also makes hessian!). This is cooked with lamb and lemon and too much garlic, served over rice. I have found it impossible to get this vegetable fresh in Melbourne (though I am sure you can probably find it in Dandenong somewhere) so have settled for the far inferior frozen product. Bamia is an okra and lamb stew which i have blogged about here

and here we have a pasta bake and kefta bil tahini, which I have blogged previously here. I wish I had a Pyrex dish as big as this though - mum has had it for 30 years.

Too much food was had on this trip leading to a week of vegetarianism (is that a word?). Luckily my garden is still overproducing so that has not been a problem. Arabic food often has a lot of meat in it which i can only really handle in small doses. The food and family though, were great! Hopefully it will not be as long between family get togethers.

Stuffin’ Time

2009-03-03T17:27:00.010+11:00

It is that time of the year when the vegie plot has been yielding its treasures and making it difficult to keep up with cooking things as I pick them. A couple of weekends ago, I decided to celebrate the fact that my white zucchini plant had finally fruited by stuffing them, as well as a few other things I could get my hands on! Now this did take me a while but it was a pleasant way to spend the day and it definitely tasted good!

I wanted to do the Arabic traditional vine leaves and stuffed zucchini (warrah and koosa siami) but did not have enough vine leaves. My mother suggested on the phone from Sydney that I could use silver beet instead if I had any. Had any? I have 5 plants in the backyard! I had never eaten these silver beet rolls before but they were really lovely – difficult to say if it is better or not to the vine leaves…

I originally posted on the way to make vineleaves the Arabic way here . I basically used the same rice mix, but this time threw in some currents and pine nuts. I think these were a really nice addition, adding something sweet to the already sweet silver beet.

These photos show the rolling up process for the silver beet. They need to be blanched briefly in boiling water to make it easier to roll. One thing to note is that the stems need to be cut away or else it makes it very difficult to roll. Large silver beet can be cut into two (or three). Place the silver beet rolls tightly into a pot as shown in the last photo. Make a sauce out of tomato paste, water, lemon and oil and pour over the top. Cook on a low heat on the stove. The silver beet rolls don’t take as long as the vine leaves – I think 30 minutes was probably enough.

And don’t throw away those stems! Cut them up rather small, throw them into some boiling water, cook until tender. Then toss them with a sauce made from tahina, lemon and garlic. This makes a really nice side salad to the stuffed goodies.

I also stuffed some white zucchinis from the garden...

This photo shows the hollowed out zucchini. The hollowing out tool can be purchased from Arabic grocery stores (such as in Coburg) or I guess you can try using a knife, though I think it would be very difficult to not cut the shell. I dont believe that the normal dark green zucce variety can be substituted in this dish, as it does not have the nice thick sweet skin.

And don’t throw out the inside of the zucces! I sauté it slowly with onion and garlic for a long time until it breaks down and then add lemon, salt and pepper and cumin and coriander. This is delicious hot or cold, served as a dip with extra olive oil or as brushcetta topping. Really really good!

I also stuffed these – alas not from the garden but how cute is that pumpkin! I roasted these rather than cooked on the stove and added the rice mixture already cooked (for the silver beet and zucces the rice was added uncooked).

This is a close up of the cooked zucchini and long eggplants. So good!!!

This yoghurt dip is essential with stuffed goodies. Yoghurt, salt, garlic, cucumber and mint (all from the garden!).

As is this salad! Fatoush – basically tomato, cucumber, spring onions, parsley, mint, radish, toasted pita bread and a dressing of oil, lemon, sumac and garlic. We positively reeked after this meal from all the raw garlic but it was worth it!

And my final dinner plate (minus the pumpkin and capsicum – do you think I may have cooked too many things?).

Wow, that was a long post. But if you find yourselves with a glut of any of these vegies – give this a go, you will not be disappointed!

Note: All these vegies were stuffed ‘siami’ which means without meat. There is a meat version, which I personally do not like as much, but if anyone is interested I can post my mothers recipe.

Swimming in tomatoes

2009-03-01T13:52:00.005+11:00

In early January I was moping around the garden wondering why I didn't have any ripe tomatoes yet.

Fast forward to the end of February and I am drowning in tomatoes. We are picking buckets this big every couple of days! Not bad for a first time gardener. I am wondering if maybe I planted too many cherry toms but I have started eating them as snacks and for almost every meal!

The mission to use all our tomatoes began this week. So far we have made a tomato sauce/ passata, a tomato relish, a gazpacho soup, and tomato and basil sorbet. We have also unfortunately started to become inundated with zucchinis (a few we didn't notice in the garden got to 900g!!!). So the pickling adventures also begin!

The gazpacho was a revelation. I have never made it before and didn't realise how easy it was! I had some left over home made spelt bread which I whizzed up to bread crumbs in a food processor. I then processed about 700g tomatoes, 150g of cucumbers (also from the garden), added 150g of the bread crumbs and then added 2 cloves of garlic, a cup of water, salt, pepper and Tabasco sauce. Leave in the fridge for an hour (or overnight - I am still eating it and it is beautiful), add some good quality olive oil to serve and enjoy! I think I will try serving it with some tomato sorbet next time.

We made a batch of passatta earlier in the week. I haven't tried the results yet (as we have so many fresh ones still!) but I followed a recipe by Maggie Beer. I am a little concerned with shelf life as I have not made preserves of any kind before - any information from worldly bloggers reading this would be appreciated!

And this is the latest preserve -tomato relish based on a Stephanie Alexander recipe. It seems a bit thinner than I am used to but I haven't tried it yet. I was also thinking a tomato jam might be nice but cannot find a recipe I am happy with.

Of I go to make some zucchini bread and butter pickles. Happy eating everyone!

Seasonal at its best

2009-02-03T17:56:00.010+11:00

Melbourne has been too hot to eat or think about food. And i have been a very tardy blogger. It is hard to be enthused about food when you have heat stroke (and yes I realise playing soccer in the middle of the day in 40C heat was not my smartest move).

Somehow my garden seems to have made it through the heat, with some burnt ferns that should bounce back, and a couple of burnt tomatoes but not too many. We even got our first couple of ripe toms on the weekend which was pretty exciting. The seedlings of leek and celery that i put in the weekend before have mostly died though.

And for cooking? It has mostly revolved around salads, BBQ, and for one dinner, just icecream. Luckily having all the makings of a salad in the garden makes life a bit easier and the grocery bills down.

My fave salad is still the beetroot salad. We have some amazing heirloom beetroot that just need a shave, some lemon and oil and seasoning, and damn that is a good salad. In this case served with salmon, my mother-in-laws potatos in a salad, and the steamed beetroot leaves and some beans from the garden

I havent downloaded all my photos so dont have pics of the tomatoes, zucchinis and cucumbers or the amazing sweet corn. The 6 different varieties of basil are doing really well though and the cinnamon and lemon basils are really adding that special something to slads, sandwiches and basically any meal! The real quantities have come from my beans and my rocket. i just love the purple colour and have been adding it to everything, even sambos!

We went to a Day on the Green staring Leonard Cohen a few weekends back. The show was amazing as was Paul Kelly in support! The best thing though is that you get to relax on picnic rugs and bring your own food. I am just getting too old to go stand at gigs all night (and my back never forgives me). I went with the garden theme and made a quiche using stuff from the garden pictured below. From memory it had onion, zucchini, beans, beetroot leaves and silverbeet and tomatoes. It was bloody good! All the salads were garden specials too ;) Oh and the eggs came from the inlaws and are the best eggs I have ever eaten. Real, fresh, free-range eggs. A bit of babaganoug in the corner there too.

And lastly for today I want to talk about this wildrice salad. Basically I cooked up some brown and wildrice. I drained and rinsed the rice until cold and then added spring onions, a lot of basil and mint, some pepitas, sunflower seeds and raisins. A little bit of red capsicum and dressed with orange rind, olive oil, honey and lemon juice. Oh and some cumin and corriander spice. This salad was absolutely a winner, my husband fought me for the leftovers the next day.

Am waiting for my tomatoes to really start ripening, I have many ideas awaiting!

What are you guys eating in this hot weather?

Kangaroo Recipes part 2; stir fries

2009-01-12T13:48:00.002+11:00

Happy New Year to all! Hope the break was restful, not too stressful, and full of fabulous food… and unlike me eaten in moderation ;)

I finally have a chance to finish off my posts about kangaroo. Over the break we were fed many other types of meat and different functions and I struggled to eat them as they seemed so much heavier than roo. I was nice to come home and have a simple BBQ of marinated roo and salads made from vegies from the garden. More to come on our lovely garden and the vegetables it had waiting for us after 10 days away.

The following pictures are of stir fries I have made several months ago so I won’t endeavour to put up exact recipes. To be honest it would be guessing anyway, as I never follow recipes for my stir fries anyway. As long as the basic principles are followed, tender tasty roo should be the result. I have used both the fillet and the steak that are available from supermarkets in Australia, and while the fillet is marginally better, there is not a noticeable difference.

I found Kylie Kwong’s ‘Simple Chinese cooking’ to be a great resource for simple stir fries and techniques and now use it as a guide only. The basics need to be there – good seasoned wok, peanut oil, metal spatula, very short cooking times and never overcrowding the wok. I also find marinading the meat, particularly for roo which is very lean, to be important.

This dish was a black bean based roo dish. I used Lee Kum Kee Black bean and garlic sauce, which I used to marinade the meat in (mixed with soy and sesame oil). Any vegies you like can be used, cook the meat first for about 1.5 minutes, in batches until seared but tender. Remove meat, then fry vegetables, again in batches and not for long. Return all ingredients to the wok and pour over a sauce made with black bean, soy and sugar. This dish is repeated often in our house as it is so quick and tasty.

This extreme close up is of my take on sweet and sour kangaroo. The sweet was in the form of fresh pineapple and the sour from the sauce based on lemon, malt vinegar, sugar, garlic, ginger and fresh tomatoes. Coriander is a good final addition, and again, marinade the meat in either the sweet and sour sauce or just some soy/ vinegar/ water/ cornflour mix. The meat I sliced very thinly across the grain. I found the meat broke up a little in this dish, I may have over marinaded the meat, but Nathan liked the texture of the shredded tender meat.

This was Sichuan salt and pepper roo, served with steamed Asian veg, rice and pickled radish from the yard. This was an absolute winner. I used the recipe for Sichuan beef from Kylie Kwong and served the Sichuan pepper and salt separately so everyone could put as much as they liked. The meat was super tender and as it had been stir fried on its own, really quick.

The pickled radish was pickled in salt and sugar for 40 minutes, the liquid drained and then tamari and sesame oil sprinkled over the top. I have done this with daikon too and I absolutely love it.

If you would like more specific recipes for the sauces, leave a comment but the idea is to make the sauces to taste with whatever you have on hand. I just love the versatility of Kangaroo; so far I haven’t made a bad dish with it.

And no I do not work for a Kangaroo meat company ;)

Kangaroo Recipes: Part 1

2008-12-12T13:23:00.014+11:00

I have been quite tardy with the posts. Life seems to get in the way sometimes doesn't it? My apologies to my small readership ;)

I have been meaning to do a series of posts on my experimentations with kangaroo. Up until recently, my cooking with this native meat of ours was limited to the BBQ and spaghetti bolognaise and lasagne (which I have blogged, see recipe index). All fine recipes and a good substitute for other meats. Lately though we have been trying to think more about hip and up to the minute topics such as food miles, and sustainability. We could never be vegetarians but we are not the typical Aussie type who needs meat in every meal. I am happy with some sort of animal product once or twice a week. If my body needs more it lets me know through cravings.

It seems crazy that we are still farming beef and lamb, which may work in the European countries, but in this tougher land of ours, makes little sense in terms of farming practise in Australia, esepcially in the drought. These ruminant animals with their hooves rip up our topsoil and their four stomachs leads to copius methane production. They require large amounts of water, directly and indirectly through feed. With a figure of 25% of our emissions being due to our four legged friends, at home we really started to feel that this type of meat should be a luxury or once in a while thing, rather than a weekly part of our shopping list.

Kangaroo, on the other hand is a relatively soft-imprint-on-the-land meat. Being mammals they do not produce methane, and are very light on the ground. Moreover, it is very hard to farm kangaroo, but much of our inland pastures are full of these transient creatures (which anyone driving at dusk in country victoria quickly finds out). The method of killing kangaroos, is considered humane - shooting (though is killing any creature ever 'humane'). There are estimated millions of roos in inland Victoria and NSW, and the farming requirements are pretty much nil, apart from needing liscenced shooters to kill them.

Apart from these 'lofty' reasons for eating roo, the mince is supercheap ($6-7 a kilo) and the fillets and steaks are comparitive to other meats. And importantly, they taste great, are low in fat, keep well in the fridge and are high in iron.

Having said all this, my mother would never touch it, considering it a 'dirty' meat and I think this perception is quite prevalent in Australia, probably due to years of kanga mince being sold as pet food. My understanding is that all kanga meat for human consumption is triple checked and export grade (which domestically sold cattle meat is not).

On to the recipes. The easiest way to eat kangaroo is to BBQ it! It is a lean meat though, so should be coated or marinaded in oil and whatever other flavours you like so that is doesnt burn. This is the mariande I most often use, but any other spcies or herbs may be used.

BBQ marinade

Olive oil

garlic

native or other pepperberries, crushed

lemon myrtle

parsley

Mix ingredients and coat kangaroo fillets for at least an hour. Bring to room temperature before grilling. Cook for 3-4 minutes per side, depending on the thickness, rest for 5 minutes, season, and enjoy. Do not overcook, this really does need to be medium at the most. Lemon is also very good in the marinade.

The picture below shows a meal I made for myself one night. I made a quick mushroom sauce with the steak and instead of potato mash i made cauliflower and parmesan mash, which was beautiful.

Shepherds pie and variations

Kangaroo mince goes absolutely beautifully in shepherds pie. I use this recipe with modifications. One is that I obviously use kangaroo mince, the other that i had a spoonfull of vegemite and of curry powder to the mince. The shots below show two different accompanying salads. One was a grated carrot salad which is a staple in this house, and the other was a salad that involved some cherry truss tomatoes, roasted.

I have also experimented with topping with a pumpkin/ potato mix mash and this is just lovely. There needs to be at least one potato in the mash or else it is too runny, but this can always be fixed by adding breadcrumbs.
I have also made a kangaroo stew. I used home-made chicken stock and seared the kanga before adding it to the mix. The stew doesnt need to be cooked for too long with the meat, but after 40 minutes, I found the meat was still tender (which can be a worry when cooking kangaroo due to its lean-ness) . I wont include a recipe as most people have a stew recipe they use.

Arabic Mousakka

I didnt know what else to call this dish. It resembles a Mousakka, but contains no bechamel or cheese, and is served with rice.

2 eggplants, sliced

onion

1kg mince

tomato paste

salt, pepper, mixed spices

pinenuts

2 potatoes sliced

2 tomatoes sliced

parsley

Firstly, grill or fry the eggplant slices

Brown the mince with onions and garlic and spices (mixed spices are good) until cooked and add parsley and pinenuts.

Lightly grease a baking dish. Arrange potato slices in one layer at bottom of dish. Top with one layer of eggplant slices. Place cooked mince on top of each eggplant slice and then top with another eggplant slice (like a sandwich). Top eggplant with tomato slices. Dilute a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste into enough water to just cover the dish contents. I also added a tin of tomatoes to the top, but this is not really necessary. Bake in oven for 30-40 minutes or until bubbling and fragrant

Serve with rice and salad

I have also been using Kangaroo fillet in Chinese style cooking, which tastes great! The quick stir-frying technique works really well for kangaroo and I have tried many different variations and haven't been dissapointed yet! More recipes to come in part 2... enjoy

A rainy day of baking...

2008-11-24T14:01:00.004+11:00

The weather this weekend was crazy. On Saturday, we had rain, hail, winds, intermixed with bursts of sunshine. The wood heater has been going flat out all weekend. The 15000L water tank we plumbed into half the roof a week ago is now half full. The vegie patch is happy (and a little battered).

After looking forward to spring so much this year, I rather enjoyed this weekend back in winter. I nested a little, baking, and making soup, and filling the house with warmth. I ran out to the garden to pick some salad greens and radishes between downpours, but mostly took an easy weekend. I also fed some king parrots that used our deck as shelter from the rain…

So food wise, first up I decided to bake a loaf of bread in the neglected bread maker. We prefer to make bread using our own hands but it does take a lot of time. This sunflower and burghul wholemeal bread recipe came with the bread maker, and was easy and reasonably good for a bread maker bread. It was a bit heavy though, maybe my yeast was a bit old and maybe my flour was too (have gone and bought fresh everything now)

Nathan then decided to make Anzac biscuits. We used Belinda Jefferies recipe from ‘Mix and Bake’, and the results were fabulous. Anzac biscuits are so easy to make, and were perfect for this rainy weekend (and for morning teas during the week if Nath doesn’t eat them all)

Back to the bread maker, I decided to make pizza for dinner. Using the recipe from the instruction manual, two thin based pizzas were made with absolutely no effort. The base is not as good as the base I prepared by hand using Maggie Beers recipe for the pissalidiere but it was reasonable.

For toppings I decided to try one of our favourites – potato and rosemary. I also dropped some garlic on it and drizzled a fair bit of olive oil and salt, and a little parmasen. It was pretty good, but would have been better if the base was better.

The other pizza was a tomato based pizza with pancetta, mushrooms, olives, sundried tomatoes, artichoke and mozzarella/ parmesan to finish. This was pretty good and not too heavy which was nice.
I served these with a fennel and anchovy salad.

Much too much baking for one day, and I am all carb-ed up now, but it was just what we felt like! Hopefully the next two weeks will fill our tank up so we can set the drip irrigation going for the vegies. So far we are just harvesting the quick green leafy vegies and radishes but the longer growing plants are looking good (apart from some pest problems).

My garden - a work in progress (and constant battle with the possums)

2008-11-17T15:23:00.006+11:00

I have been a bit quiet on the blog front lately. I have still been cooking (and obviouly the eating never stops) but all my spare time at the moment is being taken up with my garden.

The unplanted garden...

A moment of insanity in an unnamed supermarket led me to declare to my husband that i just HAD to start growing my own food NOW. Never mind that we need to renovate the bathroom rather urgently, or paint, or a million other things.

And as my husband always does, a 'little garden' became a massive undertaking. We are still not quite done but we are getting there!

levelling out ground for a water tank

We have plenty of room in our yard, but we have one massive problem - possums. Possums who have now had a nibble on my vine cutting, my strawberries, by lemon and lime tree and some seedlings. Thank god they have left my front herb garden mostly alone as I have been gorging myself on parsley, rocket, corriander, dill, rosemary and mint for a few months now. Some of these are going to seed now but I cant complain.

The herb garden

So, this leads to the construction of an electric fence. And also the installation of a water tank. Both are not quite done yet, and i am growing the pumpkin, zucchini and jute out of the fenced area (as they need room to grow everywhere), but we are getting there...

We are also having some bug problems. I think they are little grasshoppers but I am trying to be organic so not sure what to do here. I am growing some marigold and poppy and the garden is surrounded by lavender and rosemary to attract the 'good' bugs, but at the moment, the bad are outnumbering the good...

And this photo is of an unexpected guest we had last week - an echidna! Hoepfully he has been eating some of the ants that seem to be everywhere in the garden at the moment...

We will have to do some netting when the tomatos start flowering to stop the birds but we are getting there slowly. Most of my plants have been grown from seed bought from the Diggers club.

An interesting point - I have planted some seeds that I got from my uncle - molkeyah as it is known in Arabic. In english, this is known as Jute - used to make hessian. Arabs use the leaves in a stew with lamb and lemon and spices for a pretty amazing dish (also called molkeyah) and as I havent been able to find any of this in melbourne's markets, I am going to try growing my own. Apparently it grows as easily as hemp so I am hoping to get a good harvest that I can freeze for the entire year.

Planted - tomatos, capsicums, eggplants, rocket, pak choy, chinese brocolli, corn, beans, beetroot, potatos, carrots (having issues with these), fennel (not doing well), silverbeet (only one plant has survived the possums), beans (climbing), zucchini, pumpkin and jute.

Hopefully in a couple of months, my posts will be about using copious amounts of tomatos! If the possums, birds and wallabies dont get it first of course!!!

Kefta Bil Tahini

2008-10-30T16:13:00.004+11:00

This is comfort food for me that reminds me of my childhood. It could probably be compared to ‘rissoles and mash’ if it had to be but it tastes much much better!

This translates to Kefta with tahinin; kefta being a mince meat ball (also known as kofta in other cultures)

It is a very simple dish, the only tricky part being making the tahini sauce, but if you follow the instructions, it should be fine. Serve with steamed basmati rice and a salad.

Sorry i dont have a photo fo the served product - we were all too hungry to wait for a photo!

Kefta bil tahini (serves 4)

Kefta

500 grams mince meat (lamb or beef)
1 onion, diced
1 tomato, finely diced
Bunch of parsley, diced
1 egg
Breadcrumbs
Cumin, coriander, mixed spice
Splash of Tomato sauce
Mixed spices, salt and pepper to taste

Tahini sauce

2-3 tablespoons of tahini
Juice of 1-2 lemons, to taste
Water
Salt, pepper
3 Potatoes, sliced 1cm thick
1 onion, sliced thinly

For the kefta, mix all ingredients with your hands, adding enough breadcrumbs to make the mixture hold shape. Refrigerate the mixture for 30 minutes to give it more hold. When ready to grill, preheat grill to 180C and roll the mixture into balls (about 2 tablespoons worth per ball). Flatten slightly and grill on both sides until cooked.

For the tahini sauce, put the tahini in a small bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of water and beat into the tahini well, until it stops being lumpy and forms a smooth paste. Add another table spoon of water and do the same thing. If you skip this step, when you add the rest of the water, the tahini will coagulate and form a lumpy mess. Add the lemon juice, mix well and then add about 1L of water, stirring well to for a nice sauce.

Arrange the potato slices on the bottom of an oven proof dish (such as a lasagne dish). Top with sliced onion and cooked kefta. Pour sauce over and make sure it covers most of the kefta. if it doesnt, add more water.

Put into an oven at 180C for about 30 minutes (covered with foil), or until the liquid is bubbling and it smells good.

Serve on rice

yummmmmm

Why the Italians invented pasta machines...

2008-10-15T15:44:00.004+11:00

They only cost around 30 dollars. So why didn't I get one?

Oh no, I really want to make pasta from scratch. What was I thinking?

After having a lovely pea and parmasen ravioli at Ladro a few months back, I couldnt get it out of my mind. I had to make it for myself! And luckily, the recipe was online at the Gourmet Traveller website!

Apparently there are ravioli cutters too. All this would have made my life much easier. It was actually a rather easy recipe, apart from the actual rolling of the dough and filling the ravioli. My problem lies in the fact that i dont have a very good rolling pin, and i couldnt roll it thin enough. Also, I ate too much of the filling while I was making it and so made myself sick of it before dinner even arrived. Sigh

Having said all that, after serving it with a butter and sage sauce, my husband had nothing but praise for it. I couldnt enjoy it. I think there is still a bag of it in the freezer.

You win some, you lose some.

Pissaladière

2008-10-02T09:25:00.004+10:00

I was first introduced to Pissaladiere by a French friend who brought some to a picnic. I was hooked! What is there not to like in a pizza which is covered in slow cooked onions, anchovies and olives? (I may have eaten much more than my fair share that day!) While travelling in France we came across it in the bakeries in Nice, and dragged ourselves away from their baguettes long enough to purchase a few in our travels.

So, I decided one Saturday that I had to make some myself. I didnt have a set recipe (which is what i do all the time), i knew the topping was basically slowly cooked onion with some thyme, salt and pepper and then topped with the anchovies and olives. For the base i used a recipe from Maggie Beers massive cook book for flat bread. The base can also be a shortcrust style pastry, depending on your mood. As I begun though I noticed I only had spelt flour so it became a spelt based pizza. This was not a problem in itself though it was a bit more difficult to knead and I had to call in the master kneader (Nathan) to finish it off for me.

And the result? Fantastic! The spelt probably made the base heavier but this wasnt a problem at all, with it being crispy and chewy and a perfect base for the onions. i had too much dough and not enough onions so one pizza ended up with an olive oil, garlic and rosemary topping which we ate straight out of the oven with more oil drizzled over it. mmmm

The ethical quandary of chocolate and how to better appreciate it

2008-09-23T14:25:00.002+10:00

Upon telling my friends excitedly that I was going to a chocolate appreciation course at Monsieur Truffle, the standard response was ‘and you don’t already know how to appreciate chocolate???’

There really is a difference between enjoying the consumption of something, and really paying attention to the thing you are eating, where it came from, and how it was made.

We have an after dinner tradition at my house of eating a square of dark chocolate (usually Lindt 70%). As a child I liked all chocolate; milk, white and dark but these days I cannot really eat Cadburys or similar products. They are too sweet and not really about chocolate to me (and looking at the ingredients list the amount of cocoa mass is very very low). To me, chocolate is chocolate by itself, without too much embellishment (with the exception of truffles, or very well made French style chocolate).

So I thought I knew all about chocolate. I was pretty wrong! The chocolate appreciation course at Monsieur Truffle’s new shop (90 Smith St) really opened my eyes to a product I think we take a little for granted. For a start, it can only be grown close to the equator, which means that it is sensitive to climate change and also the product itself changes year by year depending on rainfall etc. Secondly, most of the large companies are buying second grade beans from all over the world and mixing them together (with a whole bunch of other crap like emulsifiers, flavourings, heaps of sugar and preservatives) in order to develop a homogenised product that doesn’t change in flavour year in year out.

The course started by looking at the growing of cocoa and the way it is picked, dried and roasted (and we ate some cocoa beans and some straight cocoa mass, which tastes amazing). Unbelievably, this is done in small villages in poor countries, usually by hand, and typically the locals are not paid very much for their labour (and use/ depletion of their land). I recently came upon an article from the Age which focuses on the way chocolate is grown and issues such as child labour. West African and Asian countries typically have worse conditions for the workers than other countries.

The next stage is shipping the cocoa (butter and mass) typically to Europe where it is processed and then sent all over the world to be consumed. Considering how many food miles one chocolate bar has travelled to be sold at Coles for $2, you start to realise that the people making the money out of it will be the big multinationals but not the locals.

Luckily, at the higher end of chocolate products, the latest trend has been not only single origin bean products, it has also been to start taking care of the communities from where the beans are coming from. Valrhona (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valrhona) recently lost a plantation they had for years to a rich Italian philanthropist who offered the community a chance to grow and has introduced schools and hospitals to the area. This is quite promising for the local communities, who for years have been missing out on this precious ‘commodity’. Remember this is only being done for the premium beans and plantations.

And can chocolate ever be SOLE in Australia? Cocoa Farm is an Australian company with a plantation in North Queensland (but they also get beans from surrounding Pacific islands). You may have seen their products in Wine shops, often with shiraz and other grapes. It is not a bad tasting chocolate and is as local as we can get in Australia. Green and Blacks Organic chocolate is available in supermarkets, but remember that it is now owned by Cadbury and is an English company.

The course also offered a tasting component of premium chocolates (of single origin beans) including Valrhona, Michel Cluizel and Felchlin. We even tasted a chocolate product made with ‘wild’ cocoa beans. Part way through the evening we needed to put it into perspective so someone went down to the local corner store and came back with some Old Gold dark chocolate. It was quite interesting to note the difference between a high end product to a supermarket brand. For a start, the overwhelming flavour of the Old Gold was in fact of vanilla. It also had a real ‘dirty’ flavour to it that I had never noticed before, a real bitterness. The premium products on the other hand were all different to each other and varied from smooth, to smoky, to hints of chilli, honey, and other subtle flavours, that were actually due to the bean and not additives.

The course was supposed to go from 6:30pm to 8:45pm but we ended up being there till 9:30pm! He also had take home booklets for us full of useful information. Monsieur Truffle used to be at the Prahran markets but has moved to a shop in Collingwood/ Fitzroy so that he can make the chocolate on site. If you are at all interested in chocolate, I would recommend this course as a really good way to taste some premium chocolate and learn a bit more about it. What I really want to do next is watch him tempering chocolate and making Ganache but I don’t think that is on the cards!

And yes we have been eating much different chocolate for our 'after dinner snacks since this course ;)

Bistro Vue

2008-09-22T16:37:00.001+10:00

Bistro Vue
430 Little Collins Street

This post is a couple of months late, but unfortunately life gets in the way of these things sometimes. In the cold winter months I had the pleasure of both a cocktail night at Cafe Vue with the girls (Where’s the Beef did the vego version of the same month I was there) as well as a dinner at Bistro Vue with a group of friends. I guess the next logical step is Vue De Monde itself (are you reading this dear husband?)!

The lighting and my camera skills leave much to be desired so I don’t have any really good photos. Hubbie and I shared an entrée and a dessert (and had a main each) and the table finished with a huge cheese plate. I find I can not really fit in all three (or 4) courses at most restaurants, but I want to try so many things, it can get quite frustrating!

The service was great (much better than the service at Café Vue I should add which was almost nonexistent the night I was there) as was the wine we had (which I sadly didn’t take note of).

Styled after a ‘bistro’ it is almost a bit clichéd, with the velvet furnishings and French style furniture. However it still did make me a bit nostalgic for France. I guess I am just a sucker! Apparently some nights there is even an accordion player but luckily not the night we were there.

For the entrée, we had the 2 hour poached eggs with mushroom foam. I had read about this dish before and was curious. It was very very good. The presentation was impressive, with three eggs split in half with one containing the white and the mushroom foam and the other containing the yolk, and the 6 halves presented in a Vue de Monde egg carton! I love runny eggs and have been craving egg yolk ever since having this dish. The yolk is cooked (just set), but very runny and warm, not hot, so the flavours really stand out. The dish was served with bread sticks that you use like toast soldiers to dip into the egg.

For mains we had the wagyu steak with chips (friend in goose fat of course) and the confit of duck. As a side we ordered the brussel sprouts fried with pancetta and chilli. Both wonderful dishes. The steak was tender (and relatively cheap at about 50 dollars from memory) and the duck was probably one of the best confit ducks I have had recently. The brussel sprouts have prompted me to make my own copycat version at home, and covert my brussel sprouts hating hubbie!

For dessert we had the chocolate soufflé. The waitress put it onto the table, used a knife to put a hole in it and then poured chocolate sauce into the hole, causing the soufflé to expand. A nice bit of table theatre, but it also tasted great, worth the twenty minute wait upon ordering it. I wish I had written all the cheeses down but by this point I was a little tipsy. There was a fabulous French blue, a manchego and a French camembert style cheese, as well as another hard cheese which I don’t remember.

All in all a good night and a place I would definitely go back to. I forgot to mention the bread and butter that we were served at the beginning of the night (but sadly not replaced during the meal), which we all loved and made me rue yet again that there are no good bakeries near my house.

Simple Meals – Sticky chicken wings

2008-09-08T13:50:00.002+10:00

I love a simple meal. This is a super easy recipe I got from Bill Granger’s Holiday. I imagine it would be a great family pleaser -at least I know I would have liked it as a kid. I probably won’t be making it too often due to my new diet (weddings, holidays and winters are not good for my waist line). I did change quantities etc so will give a very general outline of the recipe I used – it is quite robust. If you can, marinade it the night before so you can just pop it into the oven, but I didn’t marinade it and it still worked out well.

Chicken wings (4 per person)
Soy sauce
Sugar
Mirin (Japanese wine)
Ginger - grated
Sesame seeds

Combine soy sauce, sugar, ginger and mirin until sugar dissolves. Marinade the wings for as long as you like. When ready to cook, lift the wings out of the marinade and place in a deep roasting dish and roast for 40 minutes at 200C, turning once.

Meanwhile, reduce the marinade by about half on the stove.

After 40 minutes, pour the reduced marinade over the wings. Bake for another 20 minutes. Sprinkle sesame seeds and bake for another 5 minutes. The wings will get quite dark and sticky.

Serve with soba noodles (dressed with soy and mirin) and some steamed green veg.

On another topic, I had stewed broad beans for the first time this year last week. Spring really IS here! At last! I am already wheeling out the barbie and the salads...

Aglio Olio

2008-09-01T16:48:00.003+10:00

Not the Beastie Boys EP. Aglio = garlic Olio = oil

We had been meaning to make this pasta dish since we got back from Italy. For some reason, we kept putting it off until one night we had an empty fridge apart from a sad looking bunch of parsley. And OMG, we are such fools for not doing this earlier.

It doesn’t get ANY simpler than this. And it tastes great. I thought it would be really fatty as the ‘sauce’ is basically olive oil, but I don’t think we actually used copious amounts of this. I made a salad to go with it to make it feel like a more complete meal, and bread is a must to wipe up the bowl.

Aglio Olio (serves 2)

Olive oil
Half a pack of good quality dried spaghetti
6 or more cloves of garlic, sliced thinly ( i thik we used more)
Chilli flakes
Salt, pepper
Finely chopped parsley
Good quality parmesan to serve

Fry the garlic in oil on a low to medium heat, covered and stirring occasionally. It takes about 15 minutes to get golden, caramel-ly garlic (be careful not to overcook).

Meanwhile bring a pot of water to the boil, salt well and cook spaghetti until al dente.
Drain the spaghetti and add to the pan and toss with oil and garlic. Add the chilli, salt and pepper and parsley. Serve with parmasen. Eat. Enjoy.

Action shot!

My winter of (fat) contentment

2008-08-14T14:25:00.007+10:00

The installation of our slow combustion wood heater has had a few negative impacts.

The first is that it is now very hard to leave our house on the weekends. Example one. Lets check out Movida next door tonight. Actually lets eat something from the freezer and stay in front of the fire and watch Buffy DVD's. Example 2. it is raining and howling outside, should we a) go to the gym or b) curl up with a good book in front of the heater?

The other rather bad impact is that eating and sitting in front of the fire seem to go hand in hand. Why, I am not sure but it might help explain the sudden weight gain. Sigh. And now I can take that one step further and combine the heat from the fire with the actual cooking of food! Just like in the good old days (which were not actually my good old days, but you know what I mean).

After reading Neils post on jacket potatoes in his fire I was just itching to try it in my fire. Unfortunately it worked too well and I am now blaming him for my weight gain. Ok that is probably not fair and my husband is loving the whole potato in the fire thing so I really should be thanking him.

The winner so far has been serving the potatoes with a slow cooked chilli con carne. I made way too much of it and froze some batches so we have been pulling it out for easy dinners. So easy! And gives me more time to watch Buffy. I didn't say that. We have also popped some spuds into the fire to have with roast chook and just for snacks. All good!

The recipe below is rough and I probably added more stuff to it (as I usually do) but it is a hardy recipe, and using cheaper cuts of beef is the only way to go here as they tenderise with long cooking times and allow a richer flavour to develop.

Chilli Con Carne (makes a fair bit)

1kg chuck steak
diced onion

crushed garlic

diced carrot

diced celery

diced leek

ground cumin

ground corriander

cardomen pods, bashed lightly

bay leaf

cinnamon stick

chilli powder and fresh chilli (to taste)

tinned tomatoes

frozen corn

tin of red kidney beans

salt, pepper, etc

Basically, gently saute the onions, carrots and leaks in some oil, add the spices and fry for a few minutes until fragrant, season, add tomatoes and stock/ water. Bring to simmer and add chuck steak (not diced) and simmer gently for 2 hours or until tender. At this point, i remove the chuck steak and shred with 2 forks before returning the meat to the pot with some corn and kidney beans and simmering for 10 more minutes until cooked.

Serve over potatoes, in a burrito or over rice and with guacomole, sourcream and grated cheese. Eat in front of fire and follow up with chocolate. Or worse, a chocolate pudding.

For the potatos, we pierced them with a fork a few times, wrapped them in foil and put them at the front of the fire box (not in direct flame). After about 40 minutes we put them directly over the coals for 10 minutes so that the potatoes develop a nice jacket. And dont have the fire roaring as you dont want to incinerate the spuds.

I need to take a better photo of our fire but you can see the two big foil wrapped spuds in the left front corner there. mmmmm spudy goodness.

I am going skiing at thredbo next week and have been coming up with meals we can cook for 7 people (hungry after a day of skiing) that is easy and nourishing to cook. so far i have come up with spag bog (with kangaroo mince of course), a chicken stirfry, a veg curry, a dahl and some frozen soups for lunches. Any other ideas for good dinners that are simple and scaleable for many hungry people?

Winter Beetroot Salads

2008-08-07T15:33:00.003+10:00

I am in love.

My love is sweet as can be, tasty, versatile and knows how to make me feel better when winter is getting me down.

My love does have one fault though...

Purple stains.

Not that that is so much of a problem. Unless you want to go out after dinner and have to explain to people why your hands have strange purple stains all over them.

I cannot believe that up until about 2 years ago, my only real exposure to beetroot had been of the canned variety. Not that the tinned beetroot doesnt still have its place on the salad sandwich, but I didn't know how much better it could be.

My beetroot education started off with roasting it along with other tubers for roast dinners. It then grew to beetroot curries (is there anything more dramatic than a very purple curry?). Then I discovered salads, and I havent looked back. Until I also discovered that the leaves of the beetroot were also edible and tasted great in salads.

This one is simple. Roast baby beets covered in foil for about 20 minutes or until soft. Peel off skin with fingers (I suggest gloves at this point). Cut in half, and add to the leaves of the beetroot if they were in good condition (or else use other salad leaves such as rocket). Add sliced red onion, raosted walnuts and goats cheese or fetta. The salty cheese works very well with the sweet beetroot. Dress with a vinegar/ oil combo. I love macadamia oil and red wine vinegar at the moment.

Apologies for this terrible photo. I would never have attempted grated raw beetroot if it was not for my food processor. Basically, grate beetroot (sans skin) and then add to a bowl with olive oil, red wine vinegar, and the rind of an orange. Sit for 20 minutes for the flavours to develop. I then add chopped parsley, any type of roasted nut, salt and pepper and often a cheese of some sort too, though it doesnt really need any of these additions. Goes great with roast chook or fish and well, anything actually.

I have been treating myself to organic beetroots lately - I figure I can get two uses out of them (leaves and bulb) so really it is worth it to get the best looking stuff I can, right?

SO what do you guys out there use beetroot for? I have not been brave enough to try the soup version yet.

What to do with a box of….

2008-08-01T11:54:00.005+10:00

Part 1: Apples

I love buying things in bulk. Not only is it cheap, but it forces me to come up with new ways to use things. One Saturday we were driving around some of the local farms and came across one selling a box of granny smith apples for 5 bucks. My husband couldn’t resist and hey, it was a bargain! What I love is that these apples didn’t have that waxy coating that so much fruit has these days. It might make it look shinier and prettier in the supermarkets, but what the hell am I eating?

You can see the box in the background there with my fabulous apple corer in the foreground. Now, one may accuse me of having some unnecessary items in my kitchen, but I don’t think that my apple corer/ slicer is one of them. Yes I don’t use it all the time, but you try coring, peeling and slicing apples by hand, and then try a whole box, and you will understand why it is useful!

The original idea was to use it for juicing and as snacks in our lunchboxes, but we were not getting through them quick enough. So we had to use our imaginations a little…

So the first thing I tried was making an apple and pecan crumble cake. This recipe was taken from ‘Mix and Bake’ by Belinda Jefferies.

It was an olive oil based cake with pecans throughout the cake as well as on the crunchy topping. Nathan thought the crunch had a strange consistency but I didn’t mind it. The recipe did say to put it in a bundt tin which I didn’t have so I used a round tin. It needed a much longer baking time and I was still unsure if it could have done with a bit longer, but the olive oil keeps it very moist.
The next thing I made was apple and walnut muffins. These were based on Stephanie Alexander’s general recipe for muffins to which I added a grated apple, cinnamon and walnuts. The preparation takes about 10 minutes and then the baking 25 minutes. I love easy recipes like these!

Towards the end of the box, we still had a lot of apples left and they were starting to get a bit floury for eating. At this point some friends of ours loaned us the use of their dehydrator. Basically a load of trays with a heater and a fan, we loaded up the trays with cut apples (dipped in a lemon bath to stop discolouration) and then left them overnight. The resulting dried apples then went into a jar which was snacked on. They would have stayed good for a decent time in the pantry, but we got through them in under a week (I’m pointing the finger at Nathan here!). It did occur to me though that if I had children, these would be a great substitute for lollies as they are sweet, tasty and completely natural.

So that concludes part one of my series of ‘What to do with a box of…’. The next instalment will be carrots – some friends and I went halves on an organic box of carrots (20kg for 25 bucks) and we are still making our way through it…

I have my eye on the neighbours lemon tree which is so full the poor thing looks like it will collapse under the weight of all the lemons, and they don’t even use them!! They have just moved in and I haven’t introduced myself and am feeling a little reluctant to do so as they also just got a new dog which they don’t give enough attention too so it spends all day tied to the deck crying. I love dogs and don’t think people should get dogs if they don’t intend to give them the attention they need (and no we don’t have one for that reason).

But those lemons! I want to make preserved lemons, lemon curd, lemon tart, marmalade and of course use it for juicing. I have to find a box of lemons for 5 bucks somewhere… anyone?

Tajine Madness. The winter of the slow cooked Moroccan ‘casserole’

2008-07-28T15:25:00.003+10:00

This was one of our wedding gifts and I have had fun playing with it this winter. Tajine refers to both the pot used to cook meals in as shown above, as well as the dish. It is traditionally served with couscous, rice or flatbread (or all three). The idea behind the pots shape is that the steam rises to the top of the strangely shaped lid which then runs down back into the food, trapping in moisture and hence leading to a tastier result. The design also means the lid can be lifted off without burning your hand To be honest I don’t really know if there is any benefit to the tajines shape, or if a heavy cast iron crockpot or dutch oven would lead to the same result. The benefit of the modern tajines is that they can be heated directly over a flame so that meat can be browned before the stewing (this leads to a more complex flavour). Because of the long cooking times, cheaper cuts of meat can be used and the flavours have more time to develop.

I started off by following a recipe that came with the tajine – beef with dates and almonds.

This is a picture of my first attempt, looking quite retro with the boiled eggs on top! I found that this recipe led to an overly sweet tajine (probably shouldn’t have added the sugar AND the dried fruit they suggested) so decided not to follow any more recipes. The almonds on top provided a nice contrast to the rest of it though (texturally and flavour-wise).

The basic concept is to brown the meat, onions and fry the spices (often cumin, coriander and cinnamon, but I have played around with this) and then add vegetables, water or stock and other flavourings and simmer.

The chicken, preserved lemon and olive version above was more successful and great served with couscous, a salad, a yoghurt dip and some hot harrissa. I am now unfortunately out of preserved lemons so have to make or buy some more before I can play around with this recipe.

The fish tajine I approached a little differently and made a chermoula paste which I used to both marinade the fish and fry in the oil as the spice base. Using the magimix I also got as a present, it is very easy to make spice pastes, in this case a combination of onion, garlic, ginger, parsley, coriander, cumin, lemon and oil. I then made the stock base with some home made chicken stock and added potatoes and oven roasted red capsicum. The fish I only added in the last 10 minutes.

In the spirit of the casserole, this is great to use up old vegies in the fridge and is easy to put together and then leave on the stove for 1-2 hours. Once you develop your favourite/ preferred spice combinations, it is easy to get this meal on.

What’s your favourite tajine recipe?

Laban Immo (Arabic Yoghurt and Lamb stew)

2008-07-22T14:43:00.002+10:00

It’s funny how the cold weather has brought out a lot of Arabic recipes in our house. Maybe I am missing home or need the comforts of the memory of childhood. Laban Immo is definitely a winter dish, as is its close relative Shishbarrah (or hats as we kids called them due to the hat shaped dumplings) a yoghurt soup with ravioli type dumplings.

You may have noticed that I call my mothers cuisine ‘Arabic’. That is because while many of her dishes are Lebanese in the sense we use it in Australia (though she is not of Leb descent), they are also eaten by much of the middle east, with some variation between countries and different religions too.

As a kid, I always translated this dish in my head as meaning ‘my mother’s yoghurt’. This is because Immo sounds a lot like immi (mother). As I got older I realised this translation was wrong (and also a bit gross if I thought about it too long). Anyway I digress.

This is an easy winter stew, the hardest part being the continuous stirring of the yoghurt until it boils. My husband and I fight over this sometimes as he thinks I could just turn it up on high heat and walk away without stirring. This would curdle the mixture but as he hasn’t actually seen it curdle (despite him doing this on the sly sometimes) he doesn’t believe me.

Anyway here is the recipe, and if you try it please, stir it continuously until it boils

Laban Immo (Arabic Yoghurt and Lamb stew)
Serves 4, serve ladled over rice

500 grams of diced lamb
1 onion, thinly sliced
3-4 cloves of garlic, finely diced
Tin of chickpeas, drained
1 1kg tub of yoghurt
Salt, pepper
Mixed spice
1 teaspoon Curry powder
1 egg

For the yogurt broth. Into a large saucepan, empty the tub of yoghurt, fill the tub with water and add it to the pot. Add egg, salt, pepper, curry powder and then wiz up with a stick blender or whisk until thoroughly combined. Put it on a hot plate and slowly heat up, continuously stirring with a wooden spoon, until it boils. Once it boils (simmers really, we don’t want it to be rapidly boiling), the danger of the broth curdling is past.

Meanwhile, or after, or before (depending on if you have help), cook the lamb. For this, fry the lamb in a pan in oil until browned and then add hot water to cover and bring to a slow boil. Add salt, pepper, mixed spice, cinnamon stick if you like, and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Drain the lamb and add to the yoghurt broth.
Add chickpeas, onion and lamb and let simmer in the yoghurt broth about 10 minutes, or until the onion is soft. Fry the garlic in a good slug of oil until golden but not burnt. Add to the stew, stir and then serve over rice. The garlic really brings the whole thing together.

Bar Lourhina

2008-07-16T09:54:00.001+10:00

Bar Lourhina
Little Collins St

A few weeks ago now, we decided to try our luck on a Friday night at Bar Lourhina. Touted as the Movida alternative, I was surprised at how different the two places are. For starters, we could get in last minute (they don’t take bookings anyway)! It has a real tapas bar vibe, with people there just having drinks from the pretty impressive wine list. We were in the front sofa area for about 10 minutes before we were transferred to the bar, so it wasn’t too painful a wait, plus they had taken our drinks order and we had looked over the menu so it didn’t feel like we were waiting too long. There are also tables, but I think the wait for those were much longer. It was quite noisy in the little room, but had a good vibe, a real Friday night after work kind of vibe.

I was hoping they would be actually preparing tapas in the bar area like they do in Barcelona, but they only prepared the drinks there. Still, the waiters were all very friendly and informative. I don’t remember everything we had now, but the special of baby goat stew was pretty impressive, as was the house made chorizo. The menu is short but the ingredients fresh and put to good use. Nathan didn’t like the olives as they were of the ‘fat’ variety, but I loved them.

The waitress did a very good job talking us out of the churros and into having the panacotta type of dish that had a mixture of candied pistachios and pomegranate over the top, that I am still thinking about. She also talked us into sharing a little glass of black sherry which was pretty amazing.

I was a little surprised at the total bill at the end of the night but I guess with some good wine and sherry the bill adds up. I think the reality of the price of food in general, particularly in restaurants, is finally sinking in, which I don’t have a problem with (as the cost of producing and transporting food has risen) but still surprises me every now and then.

A definitely recommended place, especially if you want a nice Friday night venue for drinks and food with friends.

Bamia (lamb and Okra stew)

2008-07-12T16:55:00.001+10:00

This was one of my favourite Arabic meals growing up as a kid. My sister hated it (and still does) but I think she has an issue with the texture, which is a little like eggplant (which she also hated – go figure).

Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly (as this dish tastes unreal), my very white Australian hubbie loves this meal – we often fight over the leftovers. It is a very simple meal to make – perfect for the mid week winter meal, and very nourishing. All I can say to make this a simple mid week meal is this; put on the rice first, and by the time the rice is done, the stew will be finished. I tend to use brown rice these days but my mum always used white and it tasted great.

I used to buy okra from the markets, but they tend to be the larger sized okra which are not as tender or tasty. So I have started stocking the freezer with frozen okra which you can buy from middle eastern, Greek or Indian food stores. I also tend to have lamb in the freezer too, so this means I can pretty much make this whenever I feel like it which makes it a good stand by meal. And the frozen okra is small and tender and so cooks quicker.

Bamia (serves 3-4 people)

1 pack frozen bamia (400g) defrosted
500 g diced lamb
2 tins tomato
1 Onion
3 cloves Garlic (or more, to taste)
2 tablespoons ground coriander
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
Handful coriander leaves, to finish
Salt, pepper, mixed spice

Precook the bamia, either by deep frying it in oil until light gold, or the healthier option I use, which is to put it on an oven tray, spray lightly with olive oil, and grill for 5 minutes each side until golden (but not burnt).

Meanwhile, brown the lamb in a medium saucepan in olive oil. Add enough boiling water to cover, salt, pepper, bay leaf, cinnamon stick, and mixed spice and let simmer for 10 minutes or so. Drain the water and reserve the lamb.

In the same pan, heat a little oil and gently fry the onions and garlic till soft. Add the tinned tomatoes, lamb, okra and spices, and let simmer gently for 20 minutes. It should thicken a little and the okra becomes soft. Taste for seasoning, add chopped coriander leaves and serve with rice.

How not to make a Creme Brulee...

2008-07-10T12:14:00.004+10:00

With a propane burner. Engineers, should NOT be allowed in the kitchen. Though bless Nath, I wasn't going to attempt this! For the record, this didnt work so well, as the flame was too large and slightly cooked the custard, and as propane is a liquid, when the torch was flipped upside down, the liquid ran to the top of the torch blocking out the gas and hence the flame would go out.

I am still after a good creme catalana recipe as the one I have tried did not result in a thick enough custard for my liking. Any ideas? Apart from using more thickener...

I have since purchase a butane burner so look forward to a more successful attempt to burn the top!

Baba Ghanoush - or how to best use the heat from your oven when you bake something

2008-06-26T15:18:00.003+10:00

There are some things that you inherently learn from your mother. In days long past I think this was even more true, where mothers passed on their knowledge to their daughters, in preparation for adulthood, and being a mother themselves. This was the route by which many recipes were handed down from generation to generation.

My mother is a great cook, though now that all her children have left home, I don’t think she goes to much effort anymore. Growing up, she never made an effort to really teach me to cook, she was more concerned with us getting a good education and grounding. And I, a child of a migrant, desperately wished we didn’t eat such strange Arabic food, and could just eat what my friends were eating, things like tuna mornay and lamb chops (I’m serious!). Now that I cook for myself, I cannot believe I didn’t want these food experiences, and wish I had paid more attention when I was still at home. Trying to get recipes out of her is a little like pulling teeth, as she doesn’t HAVE recipes and bases quantities on sight and taste. I have however gotten used to this and have also started to cook this way, in fact, I am not sure I can even follow a recipe the whole way through!

Having said all that though, it is amazing how much I have picked up from my mother, without even really knowing it. Telling my husband to ‘finish his salad’ the other night, I had to stop and groan! And whenever we have guests, I cook enough for an army, in the very Arabic tradition of never ever ever not having enough food, in fact, needing enough food to make everyone feel so full they are sick. Guests at my place rarely need dessert (though they are getting it anyway).

I also have picked up a need to cook many vegetables and to utilise what I have in the fridge to my advantage and preferably never throw food away because I didn’t use it on time.

With this in mind on the weekend, as I put a roast and some potatoes in my oven for a Saturday night winter warmer meal, I glanced an eggplant in the crisper I had forgotten about and didn't have that much life left. Mmmm, eggplant dip (or Baba Ghanoush) it is then. After dinner I also decided to use the heat from the oven to bake some very naughty chocolate brownies but that is another story and not so healthy!

Growing up, we had baba ghanoush with pretty much every barbeque and every lamb roast. Eggplant and lamb are the best of friends and this dip is SO easy to make. I have read in some places that they BBQ the whole eggplant to get that really smoky flavour but I don’t think it needs it, and that the smokiness can sometimes get too intense. The oven is the easiest way to go anyway…

Baba Ghanoush

1 large eggplant (or more, just scale everything accordingly)
1 tablespoon Tahini (sesame paste)
1 Lemon
Handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped
Black pepper and salt
1 teaspoon cumin
1 clove garlic, mashed or bashed in a mortar and pestle

Pierce eggplant several times with a fork. Stick in a hot oven directly on the racks (with a tray underneath to catch any drips) and leave for 20 minutes before turning and leaving for another 20 minutes. It is ready when you can smell it and it has wrinkled up.

Take out of the oven and let cool for 10 minutes or until you can handle it. cut of the top, and then using a fork, remove all the inside bits, discarding the skin. Put in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients and mash with a fork (or food processor), until smooth. Plate up and garnish with olive oil and paprika. Easy!

This is great with flat bread, lamb, kebabs, chicken, the list goes on and on…

I miss...

2008-06-23T13:57:00.001+10:00

Italian wine bars. Italian wine. Brushcetta with in-season tomatoes.

My perfect Paris night out

2008-06-17T15:52:00.007+10:00

L'Os à Moelle

3, Rue Vasco de Gama - 75015

ParisMétro: LourmelTel : 01 45 57 27 27

This was on my list of ‘to go to’ restaurants after reading the lovely Chez Pim’s account of her experiences there. She describes it thus ‘The cooking here is always reliable, with a focus firmly on using pristine ingredients and letting them shine’

Sounds good to me. I was also sold on it being described as friendly and not too pretentious, very important to us.

I had been to Paris once before, many years ago, and had, as many Australians, Americans and Brits have found, some rather poor experiences with the locals, particularly in restaurants and cafes. This time, we were determined to try to get as much out of the experience as we could and so purchased some language cds which we played in the car to try to learn at the very least, the basics.

What a difference this made!

We were able to introduce ourselves and ask for what we wanted in French. Usually our pronunciation was so bad that they replied to us in English (or Spanish a few times, I guess I look Spanish?), but I found them to be MUCH more friendly and helpful. The exception is possibly just a couple of bistros were the invariably male waiters seemed to think we were lesser people as tourists. This was definitely in the minority though and waiters of this sort were usually found in less impressive eateries.

L’Os á Moulle was possibly one of the friendliest places in France we dined at. When I called up to make a reservation, I had consulted my language book and hesitantly said

‘Je voudrais réserver une table pour 2 pour ce soir s'il vous plaît’

The lovely lady on the other side said something in French, which I hesitated at for a while, trying to quickly translate, and she then replied in English! Oh well, at least I tried.

On arriving at the restaurant that night I tried to continue this pretence of knowing French, by replying to our dining neighbour’s ‘bonsoir’ and trying to speak as much French as we could to the waiter. We didn’t fool anyone though. And though they offered us an English menu, we just tried to work it out ourselves. Stubborn? Or just going with it, as I like to think. Plus, we ended up with some interesting things using this technique all through Europe, things we wouldn’t necessarily have ordered…

The menu is a 5 course menu including dessert and a cheese course, for 38 Euros. Each course has a choice of at least 2 or 3 dishes. This was the menu. If anyone can translate it for me and tell me what we ate, I would appreciate it ;) I guess it is a bit small though…

We started with what was described as mussel broth and foam, served in a little shot glass. It had few peas in it and was warm, salty, fishy without being overpowering, and a great way to whet the appetite…

Nathan came up with a theory that you can tell how good a place is to eat by their bread…

They had two different types of bread and both were textured and chewy and crusty. All things the French know how to do to bread. mmmm

The next course was the soup course. The bowls were brought to the table with croutons and herbs, and the waiter poured in as much soup as we wanted. A nice touch.

Cream of asparagus soup

Entrées – oyster with basil dressing

Quail with a cabbage salad that was really good

For mains we had a lovely prime cut of beef, served with mashed Jerusalem artichoke and beetroot ‘chips’.

Unfortunately I was not taking notes and now forget what this cheese was, but it was lovely.

And desserts. The first was a chocolate mouse which was so rich I only needed a few bites. But then again, I finished it so maybe I didn’t.

And poached rhubarb with a fresh raspberry sorbet. Nathan is the rhubarb king and couldn’t stop eating this.

We had a reasonably priced bottle of red from Bordeaux (I cannot remember the details) which went perfectly with the meal.

The service was friendly and there were a lot of locals and cute old couples having their special meal out. It felt a lot less touristy than many of the places in the Latin Quarter were we were staying, and we left full, tipsy and happy. Happy enough to brave going to the Eiffel tower at night to try our chances. It was still busy and so we didn’t go up it (and never got the chance but after the rest of europe, climbing up another tower was not that exciting), but it was beautiful all the same. This was followed by a walk along the Seine and a metro ride home. You cannot really ask for more than that from a night out in Paris…

Cal Pep, Barcelona

2008-06-03T17:33:00.003+10:00

Now, I went to Europe for my honeymoon and to spend time with my husband, not just to eat. No really, I did.

Who am I kidding?

Before I left Oz, I compiled a list with restaurants, cheeses and other things I HAD to eat while in Europe. I didn’t quite get to everything, as eating rich food every day can get a bit too much for this vegetable loving girl. But one thing I knew after reading a few blogs and magazine articles was that I really wanted to go to Cal Pep’s. And I am glad that I did.

There were quite a few tourists so the word really has got out there, but there were a few locals too, which was reassuring. It was a small bar, full when we got there at 715pm (too late to get there on opening as planned, as ‘someone’ had an afternoon nap), which meant we had to wait. Now, I am not one to wait for food, particularly when hungry, but I really wanted to eat there. So we waited. Patience is good for the soul.

Finally we got a table, ordered some wine and got to business

This is how my ordering to Mr Cal Pep went.

Me ‘Hablo un poco espanol’

Cal Pep ‘No hablo inglese. Tapas Mixtas Cal pep’

Me ‘Si, gracie’

Ordering out of the way, we waited as each dish surprised us. Some dishes were prepared in front if us, and others were brought in from the small kitchen to the right. Watching the cutting, slicing, frying and finishing touches was the entertainment for the meal, as was talking to the very friendly Cal pep.

I just love the Spanish style of bread, toasted bread rubbed with a cut tomato, oil, garlic and sometimes parsley or basil. So good!

Clam and Ham. Fabulous. We had been overdoing somewhat on the shellfish but these just blew us away

An egg and potato tortilla with a very garlicy aioli smeared on top

Chickpeas and mussels

Tender calamari

The best whitebait I have ever had

And to finish, a crema catalana. I have a new obsession. I have sourced a recipe and can’t wait to make it and see if I can replicate this version.

This was Tapas dining at its best. Fresh ingredients, a real buzz to the place, no smoking (which in Barcelona is not a given). When we go back in 2020 to see the completed la Sagrada Familia, I hope there are still places like this around!

And I just worked out that it cost as much as our meal last week at Bar Lourhina and we didn’t have any seafood there. Though that might have been the wine mark ups.

I miss Spain

Honeymoon Europe 2008 -the best and the worst

2008-05-29T15:45:00.012+10:00

I have been back for a few weeks now, and have been finding it incredibly difficult to settle back to ‘real life’. Even more difficult has been coming to grips with the reality that I am not going to be having nice bread again, ever, until I get back to France. And cheese. And olives. Oh God, I think I need to have a little cry.

For now here is a photo presentation of the best – and the worse- eating experiences from my trip. Posts on Cal Pep in Barcelona and L'Os à Moelle in paris to follow, but for now, please enjoy the food porn…

My Italian addiction, the macchiato

There were 2 contenders for the best pasta in Italy. Number 1 is the Pesto al Genovese, eaten in Manorola, a town in the Cinqe Terre. Fresh pesto with potato and zucchini. Simple. Beautiful.

Number 2 Pasta aglio Olio. Garlic, oil, parsley. That’s it. Simplicity at its best!

This was an awesome yoghurt and fruit salad in the Cinqe terre. For travellers, getting regular fruit and veg can sometimes be a problem. I had this 3 times while we there ;)

The best wine bar in the world. Cinqe Terre. Light lunch of Campari, anchovies from the local waters, and brushcetta. A perfect light meal before a leisurely stroll.

Crema Catalan, Cal Pep, Barcelona. I think I am in love.

The best whitebait I have ever had. Cal pep.

A typical lunch for us while in France. Roquefort, bread, olives.

Fantastic wheel of camembert that our hostess in Nice bought us. I don’t know exactly what it was but it was the BEST version I have ever had.

Our host in London, Chris, setting up the ‘barbeque’ in Hamstead Heath. It was 25C for a few days in a row, a heatwave was announced, all the Londoners were happy for a change and people everywhere descended upon the Heath to cook some sausages in disposable bbq packs bought from the supermarket. Somehow I think a little fire in grass in a park during summer would for never be allowed in Oz. Followed by a kick around. Lovely.

The worst. Number 1. Fonzies in Italy. Like Twisties, but bad

Number 2. Every French Onion soup we had in Paris. Seriously? My version is way better than this.

What have I been eating?

2008-03-05T18:20:00.006+11:00

I have been a very lazy blogger. I do have a good excuse though. I am getting married in 3 weeks. And going on a fabulous honeymoon afterwards. I shouldn't complain. But there have been many good food moments I want to share. SO here is a picture show to tempt your taste buds...

Bill Granger's Cherry Pie (from Holiday)

Terrible photo but great pie. Made with fresh cherries, I had a great time making a huge mess pitting all those cherries. but for someone who can't bake, I think it was impressive.

Soba Noodle Salad

Easy summer staple. Boil soba noodles, toss in sesame oil, add any vegies you want (prawns if you are feeling extravagent) and dress with fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. yum!

Roast tomato soup

Still need to tweak this recipe but basically, roast tomatoes, garlic and basil, add some potatoes and puree!

Pizza on the Barbie

Taken from an article in the Age by Karen martini. This pizza base is more a piadina style bread and the toppings added uncooked such as boccocini, procciutto, peaches, tomato, whatever is on hand! Really nice and suprising.

Fennel and Anchovy salad (Bill granger's Holiday)

I love this salad. I found some white anchovies at a deli near me and have been making this a lot!

Luke warm pies

2008-02-20T15:22:00.001+11:00

Pie in the Sky
43 Olinda-Monbulk Rd, OlindaPh 9751 2128

I have been wanting to come here for a very long time. I love a good pie, and I love driving up the hill to Olinda and Sassafras on a weekend. This weekend my future mother in law (FMIL) and I went for a drive and a wander through some of Olinda’s overpriced knick knack shops as well as a late lunch.

Now maybe my expectations were too high. I had heard good things. And they had won awards (but which pie shop hasn’t?). We decided to eat in (though it is 2 dollars more a pie) to people watch the weekenders. I had the beef and burgundy and FMIL had the chicken korma. I also went with the spirit and ordered some mash on the side, though it wasn’t really necessary.

So, on to the pie. The filling, was very tasty, the wine flavour is strong and the beef has been slowly cooked till it breaks down into that lovely stringy but juicy consistency. Pastry, nice, holds together, not overly flaky. My pie was hot but not scalding.

FMIL’s chicken pie… was cold. Slightly warm on the outside, but cold. The filling was nice apparently though. She decided to eat it as she was too hungry to wait for a new one. This really is not good enough at 6 dollars a pie. Now maybe we should have got the waitresses attention straight away but they seemed to be having cash register issues and were not really attentive. After our meal, we brought it to the attention of two waitresses that the pie was cold, but were not offered an apology, just a ‘Oh, they should be hot’. Yes, yes it should but it wasn’t. At the very least, our drinks should have been free and an apology offered. I was going to get a takeaway pie (the Guinness beef sounded good) but after that I decided to not go there again. There pies were nice but not enough to have me go back.

There are enough good places to eat around town that we do not have to put up with bad service.

BTW, there is a great new… Pie Blog! That is worth checking out for all those pie fans. They still haven’t reviewed my favourite pie on Highett, but here’s hoping!

Fish and Chips - please help me!

2008-02-11T16:26:00.001+11:00

This is not a post, it is a question to all melbourne residents. I have lived in Melbourne for 5 years now and have NEVER had good fish and chips anywhere! Coming from Sydney where I would often skip uni to go to Coogee beach and eat fish and chips and other fried stuff (known to my friends as 'the trough') or even better fresh oysters and prawns, I often pine for the seaside fish experience.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to St kilda one night, with the sole purpose of getting fish and chips and eating it on the beach. Do you think we could find a fish and chip shop? This is a travesty for a bayside suburb! We ended up eating at Hewys Barney Allen which had some pretty nice fish cakes, ALMOST fish and chips but not quite!

SO, please help me and reccommend the best fish and chippy in Melbourne to a very fish deprived girl!

Tempura Hajime

2008-02-06T14:22:00.000+11:00

60 Park Street, South melburne

Last Tuesday night, I finally got a chance to go to Tempura Hajime. Tempura Hajime first made its appearance in the ‘press’ when reviewed by tummy rumbles, and was subsequently and elegantly reviewed by ed at Tomatom, Jack at Eating with Jack, and esoteric rabbit, and probably more. Then of course, the Age reviewed it, and within a day, the place was booked out for months. I am a very lazy booker of restaurants, I only think to book one week ahead and then when I am rejected, give up. It is usually Nathan who books us in to nice places to eat (usually at my suggestion!), and this was no exception – after I tried twice to get in last year I gave up and told Nathan to do it… and he delivered!

I am not going to go into the details of the food, as the photos and reviews of the above sites are beautiful and made me want to go in the first place. What I am going to say though, is that it is a lovely experience. We had the 6:30 booking – the restaurant only serves 12 people a night (hence the long waiting lists!) and they are staggered so the chef is not rushed (630, 7 and 730pm slots). I liked getting there first, as it gave us a chance to speak to the chef. There was American couple there also, who asked questions like ‘What is a sea urchin’ to which the chef replied by hunting down a book of seafood and showing them a picture! We asked him abut the oil he used (soy bean oil, sesame oil and tea oil) and where he got his supplies (Vic markets and Footscray markets), and he was happy enough to talk with us.

Nath later said that what he liked most about the place was the chef was just a normal guy and it wasn’t stuffy – a bit like being invited to someone’s house for dinner (albeit a Japanese guys house with lots of tempura). It could have gone that way though… there is almost a day spa feeling to the place when you first walk in – dark lighting, candles, a large bunch of flowers, and a ‘waiting room’. The 12 seats arranged around the main stage (the two tempura oil baths and the preparation table) made it feel a bit like a dinner party.

And the food really was magnificent. Simply prepared, the freshness of the ingredients were allowed to shine, and I forgot I had just eaten over 10 courses of tempura as it didn’t really feel as if I had eaten a lot of fried food – it is not overly oily and the tempura is not fried too long, leaving things crisp and fresh. Surprisingly good courses were the baby corn, left quite crispy, and the sweet potato, which upon frying became remarkably sweet. And the oyster. Oh yes the oyster. I am a bit of a purist with oysters, I think they should be eaten with lemon, salt and be freshly shucked. But these were not overcooked so though they were warm and crispy on the outside, the oyster still remained fresh and dipped in the lemon and salt was so good I had to eat it in. little. bites.

And the other good thing about this place? Set menu means I don’t have to go through the agonising process of choosing what to order, and the food comes straight away meaning I don’t have to wait for the food. If only all places were like that!

Koukla Café, Daylesford

2008-01-25T11:54:00.000+11:00

82 Vincent St, Daylesford VIC 3460

Last weekend we took a drive through the torrential rain towards Daylesford to visit some friends who had moved there. After a lazy afternoon of sausages and sitting on the front porch and enjoying the view, we decided to walk around the lake before heading back to Melbourne. I have been to Daylesford before, but all I have seen is the Hepburn springs and a highly recommended tarot reader with some girlfriends (and no, nothing she said came true). This afternoon in Daylesford was so peaceful- the weather had cleared a little but there were not too many people around, making the walk very quiet and private.

After the walk we decided to have dinner in Daylesford before the drive home. We debated trying the Lakehouse, a highly recommended restaurant that has consistently won accolades over the years as being the best country restaurant in Victoria. Realising that we were not in a mood for white tablecloths and formal service (and the distinct possibility we would not get a table), we decided to try something less formal. Strolling up and down Vincent St, the main street in Daylesford, we could not see too many places open. Considering what a roaring trade this town does from Melbourne weekenders, we were surprised. About to give up, we spied Frango and Frangos, a wine bar/ restaurant that looked promising. Walking closer to it I saw those damned white tablecloths and my heart dropped a little. On closer inspection, next door was a café/ pizza place called Koukla that looked more what I was craving – long wooden tables made from a dark rich wood, a wood fired pizza oven, and a comfortable atmosphere.

Settling in on a beautiful old table, amongst some mismatched furniture, we ordered food and some red wine. The night was cold for summer and the warmth from the wood fire was welcoming. The atmosphere was one not unlike something you would expect to see in the inner city of Melbourne, if a little quieter. In one corner was a group of girls on a hens night, but they were quietly enjoying their food.

We decided on a pizza to share, and a roast tomato and basil soup. I am not a big fan of tomato soups, but there was a basket of the most beautifully red ripe tomatoes on the front corner that made me want all things tomato. I asked Nathan to take the basket and run on the way out later that evening but he didn’t and my handbag was too small ;P I love the tomato season, it reminds me of my childhood when we grew tomatoes and would pick them off the vine and eat them, warm, sweet and juicy, with a smell that I never get from supermarket tomatoes.

I discovered that my phone takes photos and can end up on the computer. Bless technology; I think I am slowly getting it! Of course, I realised this halfway through the meal, so apologies for the half eaten photos but I have to share…

The soup was incredible. It had basil leaves scattered through it as well as some small potato chunks and was warm, sweet, and so so good. It was served with some good sourdough. I am inspired to try to replicate this at home, so hopefully will have something to show for this soon!
The pizza was a mushroom, caramelised onion and sage pizza. It possibly had some boccocini in it too. This pizza had a sourdough base according to the menu, and was just beautiful. Nath made the rather bold claim that this was better than the pizza at I carusi and D.O.C, and he might almost be right. The toppings were not too overpowering and the sage was a great flavour enhancer to the pizza.

After one glass of red and our mains I was feeling a little sleepy, but the dessert menu had caught my eye. Particularly the peach and mascarpone pizza. We ordered this to share, and by this time my phone had run out of battery so I have no photo to share. This was just beautiful. The sweetness and juice of the peaches cut through the heaviness of the mascarpone well. Oh god I want some now!

A perfect meal for a lazy cold summer day. The wine and food knocked me out as soon as I got in the car, and I slept like a baby until we got home. I am definitely coming back here next time I am in town.

Kangaroo Lasagne

2008-01-18T16:58:00.000+11:00

As promised, here is the recipe for the kangaroo lasagne. Lower in fat than traditional lasagne, better for the environment than beef, pork and veal, and also a lot cheaper ($6/kg of kangaroo mince? You don’t get cheaper than that!).

The bolognaise sauce can be used for any minced meat. I have found over the years that everyone does something different to their bolognaise or ‘bog’ sauce. So I have slowly collected everyone’s ‘secret’ ingredient into my own until I have formed what I think is the best sauce ever (big call that one!). The most important thing is to have a good quality sugo (tomato puree), and use fresh herbs.

Serves 6 (or 2 all week! Freezes well)

Bog

1kg kangaroo mince
2 big brown onions, diced
As much garlic as you like, minced
Celery stalks and inner leaves, diced
2 carrots, diced
Red capsicum, diced
Zucchini, diced
Handful of diced mushrooms
1 cup of verjuice or wine
200g diced pancetta or bacon
Jar of good quality sugo
Tinned tomatoes
Handful of parsley and basil, finely chopped
Teaspoon curry powder
Tablespoon of vegemite
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

Béchamel Sauce

40g butter
40g flour
1 cup milk
Nutmeg, cheese

Fresh lasagne sheets
Grated light mozzarella if on a diet, otherwise I use a mixture of gruyere and parmasen.

For the bog, brown the mince in a large pot with some ground pepper and set aside. In the same pot, fry onion, celery, capsicum, pancetta and carrots for 10 minutes until cooked and starting to go sweet. Add the zucchini, mushroom and fry for a few minutes. Add the verjuice and cook on high heat until reduced by half. Add the sugo and tomatoes, curry, balsamic and vegemite, season well, and bring to a simmer. Add a bay leaf and a cinnamon stick if you want. Leave on a low simmer for at least an hour, but the longer the better. It is even better if you make this the day before eating, as the flavours really infuse. This can be frozen and heated later for spaghetti sauce or lasagne. Towards the last 20 minutes, add the fresh herbs and stir in. taste for seasoning. Sometimes I add a little sugar.

For the béchamel, melt the butter on low heat and then beat in the flour until well combined. Add the milk and slowly heat up while stirring all the time until the mixture thickens. At this point I add nutmeg and whatever cheese I am using.

To assemble lasagne, alternate layers of lasagne sheets, bog and béchamel in a deep lasagne dish. Finish with béchamel and then top with cheese. Bake at 180C for 40 minutes or until cheese is golden. Serve with a fresh salad, bread and preferably a big glass of red. Share with kookaburras if you dare!

Kangaroo Lasagne

2008-01-16T10:39:00.000+11:00

In an attempt to lighten up my cooking, and to satisfy a lasagne craving, I made kangaroo mince lasagne. It turned out quite good, though I am a little dubious about the low fat claim due to still using bechamel and pancetta. it was yummy though! And apparently, the kookaburras liked it too - this is a photo of them this morning waiting for leftover lasagne, and then eating it out of Nathans hand!
I'll post the recipe tonight but loved the birds!

Lemon Yoghurt Cake. Or what to bake when you have nothing in the cupboard

2008-01-12T19:40:00.001+11:00

I love reading cookbooks. I can read them for hours dreaming about what I could make. I love the photos, the possibilities. What I don’t really do so much is bake desserts, though i like looking at photos of them. They seem fiddly, time consuming and then there is a cake and only 2 people to eat it. Which isn’t really a problem except Nath has no stop mechanism. Ok neither do I…Actually I think I have only made 3 cakes in my life and all in the last 12 months. A carrot cake for Naths birthday (after much begging), a chocolate flourless cake (so so good) and now a yoghurt cake. This was served with macerated fruit, and a dollop of icecream. And it fed us 3 times so that’s pretty decent for the amount of mess I made (whisking up eggs is not my forte)…

Taken from Neil Perry’s good food…

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a 22cm spring form cake tin and line with baking paper. Beat 4 egg yolks with 100g sugar to a thick, pale cream. Beat in 3tbs plain flour until smooth, 400g of Greek style yoghurt, and then the zest and juice of a lemon. The 4 egg whites are then whisked until stiff and folded into the yoghurt mixture. The mixture is poured into the prepared tin and baked for 50 minutes. After cooling, dust the cake with icing sugar. This is a bit like a cheese cake, except lower in fat (I used fat free greek yoghurt and it worked fine)

To make a fruit salad, place fruit such as peaches, blueberries and mango into a bowl with lemon zest, lemon juice and sugar. Split a vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds and combine with the fruit mixture. Cover and set aside for at least an hour at room temperature to macerate.

Hangover Breakfast Cure No. 2

2008-01-12T19:23:00.000+11:00

It took me a while to face food this morning but when I did, I was craving two things, chorizo and baked beans. Ordinarily I would make my own baked beans, but due to my pounding headache, I used a can. Nothing wrong with that. Right? And you know what they say, if you are craving something, it means your body needs it…

Last week I had made Bill Grangers garlic Spanish style mushrooms which was great so today I tarted them up with some chorizo, and I have to say, it was just what I needed!

Basically, I fried some chorizo slices for about 5 minutes till crisp. I removed them from the pan, added some small button mushrooms (whole) and fried until golden (2-3 min). I then removed those from the pan, and fried a clove of finely chopped garlic and a chopped birds eye chilli until golden. The mushrooms and chorizo were returned to the pan and mixed until the garlic mixture coated the mushrooms. A big handful of finely chopped parsley was added to finish the dish. Yum! Served with toast, poached eggs and baked beans on the deck in the sun.

Easy Chicken Stirfry

2008-01-11T14:56:00.000+11:00

Second recipe in my cookbook for my brother...

Chicken, Cashew and Basil Stir-fry
Serves 4
500g chicken breast sliced thinly (free range is better)
Spring onions, 2cm pieces
Garlic
Ginger
Red Capsicum sliced thinly
Other vegies such as celery, carrot, mushrooms, baby corn, zucchini, asparagus, snow peas - sliced thinly
Bok choy or bean sprouts or chinese cabbage
Marinade; 2 tbs White wine, sherry or rice wine, 2 tbs soy sauce, 1tsp sugar, Sesame oil, 1 tbs corn flour
2 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs sweet chilli sauce
Cashews (optional)
Basil or Thai basil

If you have time, the best thing to do is marinade the chicken for 30 minutes or for as long as you can. Combine ginger, garlic, white wine, soy, cornflour, sugar and sesame oil in a bowl with the chicken and refrigerate. In the meantime, chop and prepare all the other ingredients. When everything is chopped and ready, start to cook.
The cooking itself will take between 5 and 10 minutes so it is important to have everything ready. Heat a wok with peanut oil (much better for stir frying than olive oil) and fry the chicken for two minutes, until opaque. Add the capsicum and other vegetables (except bok choy) for two minutes only on high heat. Add the bok choy and if you have some white wine add a tbs now too and fry for 1 minute, until bok choy has wilted. Add sauces and stir through wok for 2 minutes until hot, and chicken is cooked through. Stir through spring onion. Add basil and cashews and serve over cooked brown or basmati rice. Some finely chopped red chilli is also good as a garnish.

Note: You can use other nuts such as almonds and as much or as little vegies as you like. The more vegies you have the longer they will take to cook so add the longest cooking vegies first such as carrots and capsicum. You can replace the basil with fresh coriander.

Couscous salad

2008-01-06T15:26:00.000+11:00

Master Recipe for Couscous Salad

This recipe is a ‘master’ recipe which means I never make it the same way – use whatever vegies, cheeses or meats you have in the fridge, and any herbs you have too. It is great as a side dish to accompany meat such as lamb or chicken, or as a main meal if you jazz it up with say some grilled pumpkin. It takes about 10 minutes total to make and is very light on dirty dishes. I also sometimes add canned lentils for more legumes. You can make it more Italian with basil and boccocini, or Moroccan with cumin, coriander, turmeric, lemon and haloumi.

For two, with leftovers for lunch the next day. Makes enough for big meals.

1 cup couscous
1 cup boiling water
Red capsicum, diced
1 can chickpeas, drained and washed
Cucumber, diced
Celery, finely sliced
Carrot, diced
Tomato or cherry tomatoes, diced
Red onion, finely diced
Herbs such as parsley, basil, coriander or mint finely chopped
Cheese such as boccocini, haloumi (is great fried) or fetta
Olive oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Seasoning to taste

To prepare the couscous, bring 1 cup of water to the boil with some salt and if you like some seasonings such as cumin, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon or anything! Garlic is good too. Add the couscous, turn of the heat and leave for 5 minutes. Add some oil, turn the heat onto high and fluff with a fork for about 1 minute before removing from heat.

Combine all ingredients into a large bowl, mix and add olive oil and balsamic, and lemon if you are using haloumi.

Happy New Year

2008-01-06T15:11:00.000+11:00

Sorry about the lack of posts, life went crazy leading up to Xmas and the New Year! Hope everyone had a good holiday season and ate some interesting food. Many intended posts have been left by the wayside but to summarize what has been rocking my boat this month...

1) Marinated white anchovies bought from Ripe, Sassafras. Unbelievably good.

2) All fresh seafood.

3) Mascopone filled figs

4) Lots of salads

5) Tapas style dinner

My family and friends have obviously caught on to my food fetish and I have recently become the owner of

1) Maggie Beers massive cook book

2) 1080 - a collection of spanish recipes, sold in spain for 30 years and finally translated into english

3) Neil perry's Good Food

4) Bill Granger's Holiday

SO far I have tried almost all the tapas recipes in Bill Grangers book. The winner being the fennel and white anchovy salad. Maggie Beers book is so massive I am not sure where to start!

The other interesting thing that has happened to me lately is that 'someone' left my camera in Sydney so I havent been able to take photos of food lately. Luckily, it is on its way to melbourne via a cousin (I hope!)

For Christmas, I made my brother a little recipe book of my easiest and cheapest recipes. He is moving out of home next month and he had me worried during his last living away from home arrangement when he lived on eggs, potatos and cheese! So I think i will put these on eventually - stay tuned! I think i will start with my couscous salad as it is a summer staple here due to its ease and yumminess!

DOC Pizza and Mozarella

2007-12-08T18:10:00.000+11:00

295 Drummond Street, Carlton South

A couple of Fridays ago we decided to go to La Mamas in Carlton after work. La Mamas is a fantastic theatre in carlton which stages smaller and often more experimental theatre compared to something like the MTC - Melbourne Theatre Company (which a girlfriend and I are subscribers to), and also a lot more intimate as it is a lot smaller, so the actors usually make eye contact with you during the performance (which can be a little unsettling at first). The play we saw had one actor, some dolls, a pianist/ violinist and someone doing the lights, but I enjoyed it much more than the latest play from MTC... enough about that! After making plans to see a play, i deviously suggested that we try DOC, as i had read about it on other blogs and was rather interested in trying some fresh mozzarella and some reportedly good pizza...

So after our play we walked into DOC and asked for a table. After seating us, and giving us the menus, they then decided to tell us that we had to be out of there by 830pm. We are fast eaters so this was not a problem but I thought it was a bit strange to tell us after seating us. In the entry there was an old retro ham slicer with a massive ham on it that looked totally edible, and the room is one of those bare concrete walls and floors which while looking nice is not good for sound levels... as the night went on it got louder and louder, especially due to a table of very loud Italians near us.

The menu is printed on a large sheet of paper which on the back has a large map of Italy that points out where different food products in italy come from regionally. We are going to italy next year for our honeymoon so we spent some time planning our trip based on this information...

'ok, first we go to prociutto, followed by mozzarella and oooh, the anchovies and then maybe some parmagianna regiano...'

ok maybe not. Apparently the place is named after the DOC in italy- the Denominazione d'Origin Controliata which is the the Department responsible for setting the standards and controls for the control of cheese and wine and other food products, which is why the menu was focused on where each ingredient was sourced, which was a nice touch.

SO in true me style, we overordered in an attempt to try as many things as possible, seeing as they do not do half and half pizzas or change any toppings. For starters we got a lovely ball of Italian fresh mozarella, and chose as its accompaniment a shaved fennel, blood orange and anchovy salad. There was also the option of cured meats, salads and antipesto type sides but the fennel and anchovies where a perfect match to each other, and the cheese. They were also served with grissini sticks. This was a perfect starter, it was quite large and full of different flavours so it got us ready for the next course. It was also nice to see nathan enjoying the anchovies which he normally steers well clear of. The cheese was lovely, it would have been interesting to try the Aussie version, I guess it will be next time...

For pizzas we ordered a wild mushroom and truffle oil pizza, and a capricossa which had ham, artichokes, olives and capsicum as well as a salad of rocket, pear and pecorino. This was probably too much food for two but Nath always finishes everything up so i never feel too bad about over-ordering. The pizzas are fantastic - thin crisp base the way it should be and the toppings were not sparce but not over the top, allowing you to taste the flavours. Nathan found the truffle oil a bit too strong on the mushroom pizza but to be honest I didnt really notice it. The artichokes on the capricossa was a great touch, reminded me of an awesome pizza i ate in Rome about 5 years ago. Oh god i really want pizza now! The salad was a very large serve and had a lovely honey based dressing which paired well with the cheese. I had a glass of Red wine which I am so sorry to say i cannot rememeber what it was but it was Italian and was a very good match for the food... the waiter recommended it.

The service was swift if not maybe a little abrupt and the room was pumping when we left. The pizzas are a great alternative for i carusi and I wholeheartedly recommend it to all! Hopefully they buy some nice carpets or wall hanging to soften the sound a little but I must say, it is nice to finally have somewhere I want to eat in the Lygon street vicinity...

Stuffed Vine leaves. Dolmades. 'Warrah'

2007-11-27T20:35:00.000+11:00

Since I left home 6 years ago, there is one thing that i always ask for when I go home. 'Warrah' the arabic version of the well known Greek 'dolmades'. I think these are infinitely better than the dolmades that I have had at Greek restaurants (though I may be biased). And when we make them we make HEAPS, and usually with stuffed white zucchinis, and stuffed long eggplants. A few weeks ago my mother was in town and she brought with her some vineleaves from a friends vine.It is difficult to give an exact recipe for this as my mothers ideas of quantities is 'by eye' which really is a very individual thing. I finally know how to make this, but I will warn you, it takes time and is best done with other people to make the time go by quicker. My other dilemna, being in Melbourne is where to get fresh vineleaves as my source in Sydney was my relatives backyards. I will have to go scouting around Richmond for some old Greek vineleaves (if anyone can point me in the right direction i will be grateful ;)

Firstly, get a big dish to hold all the stuffing together. it is best to get a deep pyrex so you can mix the ingredients with your hands. Finely chop a big bunch of parsley (flat leaf), about 5-6 tomatoes and 2-3 onions. Add some crushed garlic (about 5-6 cloves but to taste), salt, black pepper, mixed spice. Oh and 2 cupes of long rain rice, thoroughly washed. Add some olive oil (I told you the quantities are a bit off). You dont want the mixture to be too wet as it will make stuffing it hard.

Now to the vineleaves. wash them very well. Soak them for about a minute in hot water and then squeeze the water out carefully without tearing them. At this stage it is best to get a big glass chopping board. Lay out a vineleaf, dull side up. Carefully cut out any stem left. Put a small amount of the rice mixture (be careful not to overstuff as they will open up during cooking) at the bottom of the vineleaf in a horizontal log, fold up sides and bottom and then roll up. Make them as tight as possible. Arrange in a pot that is large enough to fit all the vineleaves but not too large so the lid is close to the top layer of vineleaves. if this is too hard, it is common to put a plate over the top to keep in the moisture.

Make a sauce out of 2-3 tablespoons of tomato paste, the juice of about 2-3 lemons, hot water and some more oil. You want the sauce to be thin but bright red. Pour over vineleaves, the liquid should just come to the top layer of vineleaves. Bring the pot to the boil then reduce heat to a simmer and leave for about an hour, it shouldnt take more than an hour and a half, the best way to tell if it is done is to taste it and then you can change the seasoning.

Serve with raita (yoghurt, salt, mint and garlic) and a fresh salad.

Delicious

The strangest felafel in Australia?

2007-11-19T20:44:00.000+11:00

Obviously I forgot to take a photo until I was a quarter of the way through. Mum and I were shopping on Sydney road, Brunswick, when the lunch grumbles started. Mum suggested we get a felafel seeing as there were a few arabic shops in the area (in brunswick? no!!). I have to admit I dont normally buy felafels as my mums are so good that everything else is a dissapointment. Would you believe we couldnt find a felafel inside pita bread anywhere??? I mean seriously of all the places in Melbourne to satisfy a felafel craving you would think it would be here right?

In dispair we were about to give up when we passed an arabic grocer store that also had a cafe. But felafel in pita?

'Oh no it comes on pita fresh baked in the oven. Very nice'

So shrugging our shoulders and thinking how untraditional it was we took his advice. We watched hungrily as he rolled out some dough, crumbled felafel mix - unfried! onto the dough and added tomato, olives, capsicum and olives. Into a woodfired oven it went. To finish it off he sprinkled pickled turnip and a yoghurt sauce.

And the result? OhmygodsogoodIcantpossiblyfinishitohonemorebiteohitsallgone!

Its nice when arabic cuisine can suprise you in a good way!

Ripe, Sassafras

2007-11-17T11:53:00.000+11:00

I love living in the foothills. As we speak I am sitting on my deck looking out across the suburbs of Melbourne from my elevated position and listening to the birds sing to each other. Our regular birds include king parrots, lorikeets, rosellas, cockatoos (and unfortunately magpies and carrawongs).

One of the advantages of living here is that on a weekend if I dont feel like making breakfast, a short drive up the hills through the mountain oaks and the filtered light on the curving roads brings us to the little township of Sassafras. I have to confess though that we usually continue up to olinda or mt dandenong (and one fateful Sunday when on the motorbike continued all the way up to Donabuyang, dont ask me how that happened!).

So last weekend, with my mother visiting us and me feeling like a lazy brunch, decided to take a risk and visit Sassafras, seeing as it was so close. I had also heard very good things about Ripe. There have been mixed reviews from the breakfast blog http://thebreakfastblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/ripe-sassafras.html and others on the net, but I was determined to give them a go.

Two doors down from the famed Miss Marples, the little cafe is almost unnoticeable if you aren't looking for it. At the front there are tables outside for those with dogs, and there is also a deck area out the back. Originally we sat out the front but decided to go inside as it was a bit cool, which was a good decision as we got a better feel from the place inside. Inside there is a little deli with delicacies iincluding olives, anchovies, fresh pasta and other delights. I was shoo'd away from buying anchovies as only i like them in this family ;( but I did buy some masorpone filled figs for later (which I love love love). The tables are dark wood and there are interesting relics of old kitchens dotted around the cafe, as well as newspapers and magazines.

Onto the food. i ordered a pea and sweet potato pukara with goats cheese and relish. A little unusual for breakfast but the pukara and cheese were a winning combination and the dish was filling yet not overly so. Nathan had the salmon eggs which were nice but nothing new (and not as nice as mine see previous post). Mum had the poached rubarb with oats, nuts, honey and yoghurt served with fig bread. I think hers was the best breakfast of us all and she enjoyed it (and from the taste i got it was good!). Around us there were some amazing looking pancakes and the cakes looked delish. I am definitely going back!

Many of the tables were reserved and we were fairly early (1030) so found a table ok but for those thinking of going for lunch i recommend booking ahead. There was an interesting menu of baguettes for lunch and they are also quite reasonably priced compared to many places in Richmond! SO if you are looking for a place to eat in the hills, think about coming here...

The Bread Adventures continued...

2007-11-17T11:27:00.000+11:00

Nathan has been baking again. I cant complain, the results are fantastic (even though fresh bread to me means butter, and butter is not really so good for my diet...). These are his latest creations, taken again from Richard Bertinet's bread book. The loaf on the left is a pain de campagne, a sourdough-esque bread that we left for 2 days in its dough form to develop the flavours. The loaf on the right is a rye, caraway and raisin bread. This bread we have been eating like raisin toast - with a nice cuppa tea and lots of butter... yummmm

The breads were made with a mixture of rye, spelt and white flour. The rye and spelt we got from a friend who grinds his own grains for bread making. It has proved very hard to buy bakers four! Apparently most bakeries these days buy their doughs premixed with the yeast, improvers etc already in the mix. A kind of 'add water and mix' thing. I think we have found an internet supplier who delivers flour who we might try. It is amazing to think that something we eat so much of is so processed and is so different to the bread we used to eat 100 years ago. I am not sure I really like the thought of all those chemicals in my bread, even from so called fresh bakeries.
We have tried partially baking and then freezing loafs as suggested in the comments in my last post about bread, and then rebaking them when we want fresh bread. This worked ok, though I think we need to tweak the initial baking time (to make it longer). Making 4 loaves of bread at once is the easiest way to do things and if we manage to control ourselves and not eat it all at once, it can last us for a week . Below is a photo of an asparagus and pea soup (for recipe see my post in October) which the pain de campagne was a perfect friend to...

Morroccan Chicken

2007-11-17T11:22:00.000+11:00

Another weeknight BBQ recipe. Basically, marinate some chicken breast pieces in olive oil, garlic, chilli, cayene pepper, cumin, corriander, ground ginger, salt, pepper and lemon for as long as you can. Then BBQ!

I served it with a morrocan inspired couscous which included star anise, cardoman, cayene, cumin, corriander, sulatnas and dates, finshed with chopped almonds. A garden salad dressed with red wine vinegar and some yoghurt dip made from yoghurt, garlic, mint and salt.

Easy!

The evil possums of the dandenongs

2007-11-12T20:14:00.000+11:00

Ok, so maybe some of you might think this is cute, having mum and bub hanging out on our deck. Let me tell you, these possums are evil! They seem to be getting worse too. First we evicted them from our roof, then they crawled all over our roof and deck all night, and now they have moved onto something entirely worse...

My herbs! I decided to grow some of the essentials in pots until we sort out a proper garden. The very first night they ate my parsley. The next night they started on the basil. It took them a few days to finish off the mint. I have decided they didnt even like the mint, they are just paying us back for evicting them from the roof.

There are two more incidents that go on my list of grievances. They jump on my deck chairs, which i store on their sides so the possums cant pee on them. There is no reason to jump on my brand new deck chairs, they are just having fun. They have also started jumping on the car we park outside and peeing all over it. I am sure there is no food on the car, so why are they on it? A neighbour of ours has his lemon tree decimated by the possums - they eat the rind and leave the insides hanging of the trees!

So we have decided that the only option is to put up an electric fence around the deck. Sounds a bit extreme but that is the point we are currently at. And then we are going to have to fence around a vegie patch. I love the mountains, but i do NOT like the possums. This is some of the wildlife I do like...

Me and my BBQ

2007-10-30T20:51:00.000+11:00

I love my BBQ. It is so simple to make dinner and there is very little cleaning up. Growing up in an arabic family with a mother who was scared of gas (?!) we only ever had charcoal bbq's which are so so nice as the meat gets that charcoal wood taste, but is more of a hassle to use and so we didnt have bbqs as often as I would have liked!

The first night we got our BBQ, I BBQ's some king prawns and made them into a thai-style salad as inspired by Jack from the blog 'eating with jack', and also made a bbqed whole barramundi stuffed with ginger, garlic, chilli, lemongrass and lemon. Such a simple dinner and so so good. Fresh flavours, a good mix of salt, sweet, spice and sour, and did I mention minimal cleaning up?

The next day I marinaded some lamb backstraps overnight in olive oil, garlic, lemon, cumin, corriander, a squiz of tomato sauce and some lemon myrtle for that Aussie touch. I served it with a couscous salad, and some BBQ'd eggplant, fennel and corn. To top it off I made a yoghurt dip with mint, cucumber and garlic. Very similar to the BBQ's of my childhood, though a lot simpler...

What I like about this new BBQ is that I have somehow roped Nathan into being the cooker of meat, so all I do is marinade the meat, make a quick salad, and then sit on our new deck chairs and wait for dinner!

The Royal Mail Hotel, Dunkeld

2007-10-30T20:14:00.000+11:00

The first time we went to the Royal Mail Hotel, we were on the way home from nathan's parents place past Hamilton and wanted a quick bite to eat. All we got was the soup of the day with some fantastic bread but we liked the place. The architecture is modern but suits its surrounds, a suprisingly bright space in a very small town, a town which boasts its own lawn bowls which elevates it above some of the nearby towns, but still is a very small town.

So after hearing that it had won the best wine list in the Age good food guide, and then seeing the favourable review in Ed's Blog at http://tomatom.com I became very interested in going back and having dinner at the restaurant. Chef Dan Hunter comes from being head chef in Mugaritz in Spain, and is known for using edible flowers in his dishes.

So finally this weekend my chance to go to dinner came up as we were headed to the in-laws place for the weekend. It started well, we had a 730pm reservation, and after leaving work at 3pm (yes it took that long on a Friday night), we got there just in time. Having to still drive another 90 minutes after dinner, we opted not to go for the full degustation, and chose entrees and mains to start.

I got a Spanish tempranillo which was so fruity that if I closed my eyes, I could imagine I was drinking a white wine. it went well with the food though. First a complimentary fennel salad was brought out which was dressed with flowers and what I think was sumac. It was a good way to ignite my hunger, which I must admitt, was already making itself known in the car trip. We also got a choice of 4 lovely breads, all of which were really lovely, particularly the sourdough and olive.

This is where things went a bit weird. We waited a LONG time for our entrees. In fact we didnt get them till 845pm. That is a long wait when you are me (ie, my favourite style of dining is yumcha, no wait, lots of little dishes). When they finally arrived they were small, but really good. I had the yabbie, artichoke and pork dish, which again was dressed with small artichoke flowers and was in a pork reduction. This was really tasty, the first time I have had yabbies I am embarrassed to admitt, and the pork reduction was incredible, as Nath put it, like liquid crackling. mmmm, I would like some now... nath had the smoked tuna broth with shitake mushrooms which was also really really good.

So then, at 930, after a lot of moaning from me, our mains appeared. I had ordered the snapper, and Nath the lamb. Nathan was presented with the pork though. We mentioned it to the waiter who was very apologetic, and after consultation with the kitchen asked if it was ok if he had the pork cutlet, and then afterward we would both get a 'taste of lamb'. This was quite gracious of them I think and so we agreed to this. I also got a free top up of my wine which was nice. The mains were served with brocollini which was refreshing. The snapper was served with a hazelnut sauce, some flowers which tasted like onion, and jeruselum artichoke. It was a nice piece of fish and the sauce worked well. The pork was served with apples and potato I think, and a chocolate sauce, which though a little strange, worked pretty well. The lamb then appeared and this was quite nice, I particularly liked the baby carrots which were served with it. So, we ended up leaving the restaurant at 1040pm, a 3 hour meal for 2 courses. The desserts looked interesting but there was no way we were waiting for it!

Being the snoop I am, I observed that the tables around us were also having to wait very long times. The table next to us had some issue with their beer arriving warm and so got some on the house, but they didnt look too happy. I also noticed that the guy didnt seem to like his beef. Further away, I noticed a table where the fella was taking notes before eating anything. He looked like a reviewer, which was confirmed as Stephen Downes from the Herald Sun later by Ed from tomatom. He didnt look particularly impressed though, but I think they knew it was him as he got walked out the door (which they didnt do for us!), so maybe his wait for food wasnt as long as ours!

SO... a very long winded way to say nice food, but very long service. I understand that it must be hard to get wait staff in the country, but it looked like the folks at the cafe which ajoined the restaurant were getting their food faster. It also looked quite nice (which i snooped on when I went to the ladies). Next time we are passing through, i think we might just go there instead!

BBQ's

2007-10-29T19:00:00.001+11:00

Last weekend Melbouorne was hot. Really hot. So our thoughts turned into outdoor life and in this case, our deck which was empty and beckoning to us to fill it with tables and barbeques. So of we went to BBQ's Galore, managed to get very confused with all the different models, but somehow emerged with a Cordon Blue, with wok burner and nice looking trolley. Don't you think it looks nice?

We also got some gorgeous deck chairs, but I am afraid the torment of trying to work out which table would fit best was too much for us in the heat and so we still have to get that. Still we have our bbq so I cant complain.

This weekend we went to nath's parents place for the weekend and for lunch we had a BBQ. But not on your average BBQ...

Aint it great? It was made by Nath's dad by welding two old plough discs and a wok together. Perfect for camping and perfect for home when you dont want to stink the house out with dinner.

Anyway, as you would have guessed, more BBQ recipes to come...

The French Corner Restaurant

2007-10-22T21:25:00.000+10:00

493a Highett Rd, Highett VIC 3190

I admit I work in highett, otherwise I probably wouldnt have heard of the French Corner. Last year chef Daniel Airoldi (formerly a chef at Jaques Reymond) took over a corner shop site that has been doomed for the last 4 years, with a change of management every year or so. He had a little deli with french cheese and small goods, homemade jams and chutneys and at Christmas time he made the nicest puddings. They did lunch with baguettes and croque mounsiers and madams, and had dinner some nights of the week with a fairly traditional menu of favourites. He also baked his own bread and pastries which were absolutely devine, apparently his original training was as a pastry chef. Oh and he made the best coffee on the strip.

So I was pretty excited to hear he had expanded his business to include a proper restaurant just down the road (at another doomed site which has held a tapas bar and a moroccan restaraunt in the last few years). On Friday I finally got a chance to go for dinner. There is a degustation menu at $99 but we ordered from the menu. Admittedly we went the fairly traditional ordering route at a frnech restaurant, but that didnt mean it was a boring meal. For entrees we shared some garlic snails and steak tartare, both fresh and flavourful. A house made bread was used to mop up the garlicy sauces and I must admitt we ate a little too much of the bread (it was just so good!). At the waiters recomendation we ordered a french red wine which was similar to a Pinot in colour and taste and which the name of unfortunately I have forgotten.

For mains we ordered a cassoulet which is the specialty of the restaurant, and a mussel dish. The mussels were served with a buttery white wine sauce, pomme frittes and a delightful aoli. The serving size was HUGE, probably the amount I normally make for the two of us. They were tender and sweet. The highlight was the cassoulet, which apparently takes 3 days to make. It consists of pork belly, a duck sausage and a duck leg in a harricot bean stew. The long cooking time gives the stew time for all the flavours to meld and the meats were tender and buttery.

We rolled out of the restaurant a little too full for our own good. It was a great meal, at a good price. By the time we left, the place was full, maybe the curse of the doomed restaurant site is over?!

Hangover cure

2007-10-22T21:16:00.000+10:00

I may or may not have been hungover this weekend... After a late night, there is nothing I like better than to have a fry up. This weekend I found some smoked salmon in the fridge and had some cream, so decided to make salmon eggs. This non-healthy breakfast consists of beating eggs lightly with as much cream as you can get away with, seasoning with nutmeg and pepper (not salt till its cooked) and then cooking on low heat to make buttery scrambled eggs. I sprinkled some gruyere cheese on the eggs after turing of the heat and allowed it to melt from the residual heat. Serve on toasted sourdough spread with avocado. I also fried some mushrooms in some soysauce just because.

Winter Stew

2007-10-22T21:04:00.000+10:00

This post is a few weeks too late. Two weekends ago it was cold and rainy and all I felt like was a warming winter stew. This weekend reached 33C and all I wanted to eat was salad! Anyway I want to post the blog anway as I really do enjoy lamb shanks and that was probably the last time I will for the year...

Lamb Shanks

The recipe is simple. Preheat oven to 200C. Dust four lamb shanks in flour and brown on all sides in a frying pan or the casserole dish to be used in the oven. Remove shanks and in the same pot fry up some diced onion, carrot, celery and garlic until soft. Add half a bottle of red, a bay leaf, some fresh thyme and parsley. Return the shanks, add some stock, season, bring to a simmer and then transfer, covered to an oven. Bake for 30 min at 200C then reduce the heat to 160C. bake for another 90 min, turning the shanks once.

The first night I served this with mashed potatoes, buttery peas and silverbeet braised in lemon. The next day was a school night and I heated the leftovers and served with brown rice. Next time I make this dish I might spend the extra 4 dollars and get the shanks pre-trimmed of fat, as this can be quite a fatty dish otherwise. Still, in a cold night, nothing beats a bit of fat!

Asparagus anonymous

2007-10-17T20:01:00.000+10:00

I should change the name of my blog to "I love Asparagus". It seems that ever since spring started, i have had asapargus in the fridge, and have been thinking about what to do next with it. I have even been putting it into curries and stirfries, and made the most beautiful omlette on the weekend which I stupidly didnt take a photo of. I will put a brief description in here anyway as it was just so so so good and will definetly be making more appearances on my brakfast repetoire.

This soup is probably the easiest soup I have ever made. i made it slightly more difficult by shelling my own peas, as they are in season and so so beautiful straight from the pod...

Ok this photo does NOT do this soup justice. We had guests over for dinner and i didnt feel comfortable taking photos of my own soup (it somehow seems a bit insane really). It is actaully really green in colour.

Asparagues and Pea Soup

300g Asparagus sliced finely, tips reserved

300g peas

bunch of parsley

1.2L stock or water

Bring stock to the boil. Add asparagus and peas and simmer for 15 minutes. Blend the soup until creamy. At this point, add the parsley and reblend. Season, add a dollop of cream if you want (it doesnt need it) and add the reserved tips and gently reheat for 5 minutes. Serve with olive baguettes (see previous posts)

Asparagus and Gruyere Omelette

serves 2

5 free range eggs

milk or cream

bunch of asparagus, blanched and sliced into 4 cm lengths

grated gruyere

50g Smoked salmon

Beat eggs and milk/ cream until light. Melt butter in a pan on medium heat. Add a pinch of nutmeg to the eggs and some pepper (no salt until cooked as this shrinks the eggs). Carefully pour egg mixture into hot pan and cook on low heat until the top is still wet but the bottom is beginning to turn golden. On one half of the omelette, add the asparagus and gruyere, fold the omelette over and heat very very gently until the cheese melts. Open the omelette carefully, insert the smoked salmon inside the fold, and plate. Serve with toasted sourdough.

Home baked bread

2007-10-17T19:27:00.000+10:00

Nathan working the dough

Nathan has dabbled in the world of bread making, and not without some yummy success. Earlier this year driving up the coast we came upon one of those really cute, small coastal bookshops that had really select books, one of them being 'Dough, simple contemporary bread' by Richard Bertinet, a Frenchman, which included a DVD of him making bread. I originally wanted to make the bread, but after seeing just how much kneading was needed, I admitt I was quite happy to let Nath do it. The first bread he made was a classic white loaf, which he fashioned into baguettes and a fougasse. We ate it all straight out of the oven, with butter, in what I should confess was a bit of a overdose, but it was soso good. The really good thing about this bread was that it only contained 4 ingredients - flour, yeast, water and a pinch of salt. No preservatives, no improvers, just real bread. ANd being hot out of the oven helped too.

Last week Nathan decided to try an olive oil bread. The basic recipe was 500g strong flour, 20 g course semolina, 15g yeast, 10g salt, 50g extravirgin olive oil and 320g water. The bread flour, semolina and yeast were rubbed together to make a crumble. The salt, olive oil and water were added. The dough was 'worked' until it came together from the bench without leaving any part of it behind. The dough is then rested for an hour until it is roughly doubled in volume. the dough is then fashioned into whatever shape is desired, and then left to prove for 30 minutes before baking.

The unrested dough

The rested dugh doubled in size

Nathan then did two things with the dough. He made olive and parmasen sticks with half the batch, and olive baguettes with the other half. We ate them with a pea and asaparagus soup (will blog the recipe to this later...) and was just perfect.

The final product. I want some more now!

I wont lie to you. Making bread in this way is time consuming and it isnt something we can do every day at the moment. It is however such a natural, healthy way to eat bread, I have really found myself not enjoying commercially bought bread (especially presliced) recently, and hope that one day when we gat more time we can start making this an everyday thing. Till that day, once in a blue moon will have to do!

Broad beans the Arabic Way...

2007-10-06T13:47:00.000+10:00

I love fresh broadbeans. They remind me of my childhood. In spring my aunt would invite us all over for 'fool' the arabic word for broadbeans. It was cooked with the pod and all, with garlic, onions and lots of lemon. Served with flat bread, raw onion, a chilli and parsley oil and usually a salad or two. Lots of relatives, noise, and eating till ones belly was so full breathing becamea problem.

And that was breakfast!

I dont eat broadbeans for breakfast anymore, but when they are in season, I do buy them and cook them the traditional way. I never understood all those recipes that double pod the beans - the pod is so delicious, all it needs is a bit longer to cook through. Basically, striing the beans and cut off the top and bottom ends, cut into pieces, and fry in olive oil with onions and garlic for a few minutes. Add some lemon juice, a little water, salt, pepper, cumin and corriander and leave to bubble away for around 20 minutes. These days I serve it more in bruschetta style - piled onto sourdough or rye bread (toasted) some parmasen on top, and with a dressed salad, it makes the prefect spring lunch...

Guilty Pleasures

2007-10-06T13:43:00.000+10:00

We have been eating a lot of this. It is so so creamy and better than icecream. We have been eating it with strawberries for dessert. There is really no justification for this, it is just nice. Curses to my friend who put me on to it

King Island Yoghurt

Spring time is here...

2007-10-06T13:27:00.000+10:00

There are several things that signify the beginning of spring and the end of a bitter and cold winter. Firstly the flowers and birds that have been hiding somewhere for months all come out and give our sense of sight and smell a little nudge. More importantly, the appearance of broadbeans and asparagus at the green grocer, is THE definitive sign that spring is finally with us. And when asaparagus hits a dollar a bunch, I know it is time to cook some sweet, in-season asparagus.

During the week it is just too hard to try anything too complicated and sometimes, the only thing I can make myself whip up is a simple pasta. Luckily asparagus doesnt need a long time to cook and really shines in pasta dishes. Coupled with in-season peas, preferably from the pod if you can find it, this pasta is quick and satisfying...

Pasta with Asparagus, pancetta and peas

1 pack of fettucini (next time i think i would use a smaller pasta like orriechette or spirals)

300g mushrooms, sliced

2 bunches asaparagus, washed, woody end snapped off, and cut into 2 cm pieces

250g peas

8 rashers of pancetta, sliced finiely

white wine

thin cream (I used low fat but I dont like overly creamy pastas)

1 red onion, sliced

garlic

pouring cream

Cook the pasta in lots of boiling water until cooked. Drain.

Meanwhile, fry garlic, red onion, and chopped pancetta in olive oil for a few minutes until fragrant. Add mushrooms and cook for a few minutes. Add white wine, turn up heat and let sizzle for a minute. Add asparagus, peas and cream, bring to a simmer, and cook until asparagus is cooked, only a few minutes. Season, add to drained pasta, mix well and serve with parmasen cheese.

Easy!

Fennel - how I will miss you in summer!

2007-09-29T17:14:00.000+10:00

I have a confession to make. I didnt know what a fennel looked like until 2 years ago! How i had never managed to eat this amazing vegetable for so long I do not know! I fell in love one Saturday morning wandering around the Richmond markets when i noticed a strange white vegetable with green frilly tops.

'Whats that?' ,I asked Nathan

'I dont know', said Nath

Enter old italian guy who laughs at us and tells us it is fennel. What do you do with it we ask. Salads, roast, pasta, everything! Feeling a bit silly we take it home, consult a few recipe books and enter into the wonderful world that is fennel. Since then we have used it salads, and pastas (especially combined with chorizo, mmmmm!) but by far our favourite recipe so far is the fennel bake which is especially lovely coupled with fish. And best of all, it is ridiculuously easy. I can't remember where I got this recipe for the bake from so sorry to the author...

Fennel Bake

2 bulbs of fennel

1 tin of tomatoes

parsley

1 large onion

3 gloves garlic

Parmasen cheese

bread crumbs

Cut the fennel into thin slices and fry in olive oil with the onion and garlic until soft. Add the tinned tomotoes, season and let simmer for around 10 minutes. Meanwhile grease a baking tray and preheat the oven to 200C. Add the fennel mixture to the tray with some chopped parsley, top with cheese and then breadcrumbs, and then bake for around 15-20 minutes until golden.

Oven baked red snapper in foil

1 red snapper cleaned and scaled

1 spring onion, slice thinly

garlic, ginger, chilli sliced thinly

fresh corriander

soy sauce

lemon

Wash and dry fish with paper towell. Make 4 cuts on each side of the fish in the fattest part of the flesh. Fill with sliced ginger, garlic, corriander, chilli and spring onion. In the cavity of the fish put in exra herbs as well as thinly sliced lemon slices. Pour soy sauce over fish and season well. Wrap the fish in 2 layers of foil to potect leakage, and bake in a hot oven (200C) for 20 minutes or until cooked.

Sorry about the terrible photos!

We ate these two dishes with steamed rice. The perfect meal!

Wild Mushroom Risotto

2007-09-25T21:32:00.000+10:00

I love risotto. Its buttery ozziness, its cheese undertones and the creamy rice. I do always find it takes me longer than the 20 minutes that most recipe books claim it takes, maybe I just have very absorbant arborio rice? This is not a recipe for a diet, but I think once in a while it is pretty spot on.

When I lived in Richmond I used to buy my wild mushrooms from a stall where I never knew which mushrooms would be for sale, but they were always brilliant. One week the trader had some interesting mushrooms which were hollow in the middle (I can't remeber what they were called) and he suggested I stuff them with blue cheese and cook them in butter with onions and garlic. Yum! Anyway now i live in the burbs so on a weeknight when I decide I need a mushroom risotto, I am at the mercy of Coles. This time I bought some shitake and oyster mushrooms which turned out ok, but I would have preffered swiss brown or chesnut.

The dried porcini mushrooms are an absolute must. I must admit I am not a fan of what they smell like out of the pack but after soaking for 20 minutes they are so earthy and warming.

Wild Mushroom Risotto

300g arborio or other short grain rice

1L chicken stock, hot

10g dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in cold water for 20 minutes

5 spring onions sliced

2 cloves garlic

300g mixed fresh mushrooms, sliced

150ml white wine

30 g parmesan cheese, grated and extra for serving

Soak the porcini mushrooms and drain the liquid into the boiling stock. Chop the mushrooms.

Fry the onions, garlic and mushrooms in butter until the mushrooms have reabsorbed the liquid they released. Add the rice and fry on high heat for around 3 minutes, until coated in the mixture and starting to go clear on the edges.

Add the white wine and stir until absorbed. Turn the heat down and start adding the stock, one ladel at a time, stirring continuously until liquid absorbed before adding more stock. This usually takes me around 20-30 minutes. The rice is ready when it is still firm, but creamy.

Add a knob of butter and the parmesan, turn of the heat, mix well and leave to sit for 2 minutes.

Serve on warmed plates with extra parmesan if desired. You can see I like my cheese ;)

Yum!

P.S. Sorry about the photos, I need to learn how to take nice food photos...

Supper Inn

2007-09-15T16:48:00.000+10:00

Supper Inn
15 Celestial Ave

The first time I went to Supper inn was about 4 years ago. A friend and i had gone to see a band at Ding Dong on a Friday night and had somehow thought beer was a good substitute for food. When it got to about 1am we were starving but really didnt feel like souvlaki. Walking down little bourke, we saw people walking into an alley and dissapearing into what looked like a Chinese restaraunt. Following them we found ourselves walking up some narrow stairs with decor of a sauna room and when we got to the top were suprised to find a very busy dining room and the most delcious smells two slightly tipsy and very hungry girls could smell...

I have been back there over the years many times, and not just at 1am. Last night i went there with some girlfriends for dinner who had never been there before and while moaning in delight over the pork ribs in mandarin sauce and peking duck, thanked me for finding it and taking them.

For you see, even though i have been there many times, i still dont always find it. There is something about Melbourne laneways that confuse me and make it very hard for me to retrace my steps. All i ever remember about the lane Supper Inn is on is that it has bluestone on the road. Not very helpful?!

The food is what people go for, definitely not the ambience or the customer service. And who cares about that stuff anyway, when you are eating the best congee in Melbourne, or the spare ribs, or the schezeun beef or mmmmmm, its all good. Last night we also got the deepfried eggplant, tofu and green beans which was so so good. I love what the Chinese do to eggplant. There is a wine list which is expensive but it is BYO too and there is some rather good Chinese Beer.

So if you havent tried this place yet, hurry! I am hungry just thinking about it. Just be prepared for a queue and some rather rude service.

My mothers chicken soup

2007-09-15T16:11:00.000+10:00

I am not feeling well.

A cold has been creeping up on me since Monday night when I went to see Tori Amos at Hamer Hall. I then sent it into overdrive by going out last night and drinking a little too much red wine. Today i was meant to play soccer, but all I have done so far is read recipe books and eat some chicken soup which was in the freezer from one of my big batches I made a couple of months ago. mmmmm

I think most people have a chicken soup recipe that they think is the best and make in winter when the dreaded cold has taken hold. But this really is the best chicken soup recipe ever. My mum made it for me as a child, and over the years I have altered it to include ginger and lemongrass, but the basic recipe is the same. Even fiancee Nathan now calls it the best chicken soup, though maybe the fact someone else makes it for him when he feels crook is why he likes it so much...

The best ever chicken soup recipe

Makes enough for about 6 serves, I usually freeze most of it

6-8 chicken drumsticks, excess fat removed

bay leaf

2 garlic cloves finely chopped

lemongrass stalk finely chopped

ginger finely sliced

cinnamon and nutmeg

2 onions, coarsely chopped

2 carrots, coarsley chopped

celery pieces

handful of basmatti rice

large bunch of parsley (flat leaf)

lemon to serve

Combine chicken, bay leaf, carrots, celery, cinnamon, nutmeg and onion in a large pot and cover with water. Season with salt and pepper and simmer for at least one hour

Strain stock through a seive, removing the chicken pieces to a plate and discarding everything else. Add the garlic, ginger and lemongrass to the stock and simmer 20 minutes. At this point I usually refrigerate the stock overnight and the next day remove the layer of fat that floats to the top. The next day, remove the chicken from the bones, add to the stock and bring to the boil.

Add the rice after washing it thoroughly and boil 15 minutes. Chop the parsley and add to the soup and allow to cook for at least 5 minutes. Serve with a good squeeze of lemon.

How one chicken can feed two people for a week

2007-09-13T20:32:00.000+10:00

A couple of months ago, i read an article in The Age by Brigette Hafner describing a 'pot au poulet'; a one pot chicken meal, which I saved to my files thinking it would be a great winter warmer, and then promptly forgot about it. There is nothing I like more in winter than chucking a few things into a pot and letting it simmer for a couple of hours, warming the house with heavenly smells and allowing all the flavours to meld together. Last weekend, after running myself ragged around town doing errands, I started craving a hearty warming meal, and as the cold winter weather reappeared (as it likes to do of and on again in Melbourne until November), my thoughts turned to this recipe. So of I went to the grocery store on Sunday afternoon in search of a large organic chook. As I had missed all the markets I found myself in a shopping centre and NOT ONE SHOP had an organic chicken. After cutting my losses and buying the best looking chook I could i returned home to start my pot.

This recipe was as simple as it gets. Chuck a chicken, some herbs, leeks, celery, carrots and garlic into a pot with wine, stock, spices and some kipfler potatoes and turnips (though I accidentally bought parsnips instead... ) and simmer for 2 hours.

The uncooked pot

After 2 hours the chook was removed to a serving platter with the potatoes and parsnip and served with grilled sourdough rye bread and creme fraich mixed with horseradish. I also steamed some silverbeet and doused it in lemon.

Notice there is no photo of the finished product? That is becasue it didnt look so good with everything a bit mushy and the chicken falling to pieces. The chicken was nice, but most of the flavour had gone into the stock, and if it wasnt for the creme fraich, the dinner would have been a bit plain. Thank god for creme fraich, it makes everything better.

So, the left over chicken breast was used to make sandwhiches for work the next day ( a whole chicken for 2 people is way too much, even if you do live with a bottomless pitt called nathan). By Tuesday I was starting to feel the ill effects of the weather and had a bad cold coming on. All i wanted was soup, made using the stock from the pot au poulet, and at Brigette's advise, i was planning on making an onion soup, as I had never made one before, and it sounded like something that would be good for a cold.

Of course I was feeling rubbish so Nathan offered to make it for me. It is nice to have boys around sometimes.

After consulting my trusty Cooks Companion and finding Stephanie Alexanders version way too lenthy, I gave Nathan the recipe from Leane Kitchen's cookbook. Recipe follows, with slight modifications...

French onion Soup

650g small brown onions

flour, butter

2 cloves garlic

sprigs of thyme, rosemary, a bay leaf

1 cup white wine

2L stock

baguette (day old)

gruyere cheese

Slice the onion into thin slices and fry in 60g butter at low heat for around 30 minutes until starting to caramelise and smells good, stirring frequently. Add the finely chopped garlic with 2 tablespoons of flour and fryfor 2 minutes at low heat. Add the herbs, stock, wine and salt and pepper to taste and bring to a simmer. Leave for 25 minutes until the onions have resorbed the moisture.

To serve, cut baguette into slices and grill on the both sides, then add shredded gruyere and grill until melted. Put cheesy bread into soup bowls and ladel soup over the top.

This soup was really really good. And I think that was becasue of the stock. Nathan you did a great job though, thankyou! We ate this for 2 nights and I am starting to feel much better. Making stock with a whole chook and lots of vegies seems to be a brilliant way to do things, as the stock was much more flavoured than my usual stock made from chicken drumsticks, and so I just might start doing this more often...

So that was 4 meals for 2 from one chook. Pretty good I think!

test

2007-09-13T13:42:00.000+10:00

this is just a test as I have never done this before. Soon I will start posting photos and comments of my eating adventures