The Bread Adventures continued...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?!