On Golden Fond. A Melbourne Food Blog.

Quail au Poivre : Not Winging it Any More

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 06:31:00 +0000

So last night your dear old Ecumer was sitting in a dilapidated theatre made over into a cabaret space, sipping a pleasant bubbly. A large, bearded black gentleman of Pavarottiesque stature with a blond wig and ruby lipstick threw off his Pierrot costume to reveal a skintight gold lame catsuit, and jumped into a rousing version of "Nessum Dorma".

If he can do that, I thought, I can get back and do some blogging. Which brings us, obviously, to quail.

If you can't see the connection, I'm not going to explain it.

Quail are one of my favourite things, especially as a starter. Quick to cook, a perfect size for one person, quite nice to look at, enough of a game bird to be tasty but not so gamy as to be controversial. And you can take one in each hand, holding them on the side of the chest so their little wings stick up, and swoop around the kitchen while playing "Ride of the Valkyrie". Not when people are around though.

Probably the only thing you can do to mess it up is to overcook it. Quail have no fat so they need to be cooked to a pinky purply level or they will be dry and tough. Goodness knows, I've been guilty of this a few times.

Roasting them whole (with maybe some herbs, or some onion in the cavity) is a pretty safe way of cooking, there's a bit more forgiveness in the heat seeping in from hot air in the oven than there is from the kiss of a hot, hot pan. But me, I've never really enjoyed trying to wrestle the meat off the bones with a knife and fork while trying to keep my manners. And picking them up and gnawing off the bones is frowned upon unless with the closest of friends.

So I bone them out (wings and legs excepted) and grill them in a medium hot pan with a little olive oil until I reckon they're done. And they're pretty nice. Above the fold is a grilled quail on shaved fennel with a mustard vinaigrette I did ages ago. It was nice. Decent browning, a touch of pinkness, good flavour. Really healthy too. Not bad quail, I thought.

Then a month or so back I had dinner out at a couple of French bistros and happened to have quail both nights. And as happens sometimes, I realised just how far short of excellent my food can be. Those quail were moist, plump, singing with flavour, golden brown and delicious. They knocked mine out of the park, and I wanted to be better.

So off to the quailmonger I went and came home with four fine little quail. I boned them out and checked my notes. Recipes for grilled quail I found had them cooking for various periods from three to eight minutes per side. Three minutes seemed a bit low and eight was certainly far too long, and hopefully a criminal offense in some states. I heated my pan up to medium, and cooked them one after the other for different terms, starting at three minutes per side and going up to six. The three was in fact well underdone (I cooked it a little more for the kind dinner guests who were the patient guinea pigs for my quail practice), four was just about right, five a tiny bit over, and six heading well into overdone territory*.

* I ate the overdone one. It was the right thing to do.

And the golden brown part? A tablespoon of butter instead of a tablespoon of olive oil won't kill you, but it'll brown things up pretty sweet. The result :

Who's your quail daddy?

Recipe : Quail au Poivre, either way

I couldn't find a recipe for quail au poivre, but the technique for doing steak this way is easily transferable. You cook a steak, well covered in pepper, in a pretty hot pan, then deglaze with some brandy, throw in some shallots and cook for a minute on low, and then finish the sauce with either some cream or some red wine reduction and veal glaze depending on your preference.

Having said that, do I really need to give a recipe? How about just some notes.

1 tablespoon of butter per quail
Lots and lots of coarse ground pepper. As much as will stick.
Put the butter in after the pan is heated to medium. Put the quail in as soon as the butter is melted and starting to bubble.
Cook skin side first for 4 minutes, then the other side for three. Set aside to rest - I set the oven to 50 C and leave them in there.
If there is any burning on the pan, scrub it off and start the sauce with a little butter and shallot in the clean pan. But if you've got some nice fond on the pan with no burning, add the shallots and saute on low, then deglaze with brandy, turn heat up to reduce it, then finish with cream or veal glaze as you prefer.
If you use sour cream, do not let the heat get too high or the cream will separate and your sauce will taste fine but look very unfortunate. I forget this every couple of years and need to be reminded by my errors.

Quail au poivre with a sour cream sauce, on a bed of wilted rocket and sauteed kipflers. Yes I split the sauce. And I know I said I used quail as an appetiser, and I would not as a rule put spuds and veg in an app. But this was the third course in a series of small dishes so I bulked it up to a mini-main.

And may I add that I am using rocket instead of spinach pretty universally lately. It stays a brighter green than spinach when cooked and never has that earthy flavour that spinach does. Go team rocket!

Quail au poivre with a red wine and veal glaze sauce, on a bed of white polenta and baby leek. The sauce is a bit of a virulent colour - I should have reduced the wine separately before cooking rather than trying to reduce it in the pan and losing patience.

So there you go, Fonders. Your dear old Ecumer is now quail confident instead of just quail curious. Who would have thought that research and practice would save the day?

Happy quailing,

Ecumer

A Christmas Dozen

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 06:36:00 +0000

So I was back at work after the holidays and I was talking to one of my work chums, as one does, about what we did on our respective breaks. Work chum Terry is another keen enjoyer of the pleasures of the stomach, so our chat was less about beaches, barbies and the Boxing Day Test than it was about braises, blanching and beurre blanc.

As we ran through our respective consumption it occurred to me just how much variety of the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky and the fishy denizens of the deep I had eaten in those few days, and, long story short, I have been moved to write a little verse.

The Twelve Meats of Christmas

Music : Traditional with additions by Frederic Austin

Words : Ecumer

In the holidays of Christmas, I put in my tum-my

Grilled crayfish tail,

Herb crusted venison,

Spicy chicken wings,

Crispy fried quail,

Wallaby carpaccio

Kingfish sashimi,

Roast suckling pig,

<deep breath> Kangaroo ... sau-sage ... rolls,

Fried soft-shelled crab,

Crusty duck balls,

Roasted rack of lamb,

And a nice piece of steak on the grill.

Don't worry, I won't give up my day job.

Happy omnivoring,

Ecumer.

A Season of Feasts : The Eve

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:22:00 +0000

It's that time of year again. Business winds down (except the business of buying presents), people take time off to spend with family & friends, eat, drink, be merry and all that. Time to put one's feet up and enjoy the sunset.

Bolte Bridge sunset from Docklands. Do you know how long I had to sit

there drinking to get this shot? Never question my devotion to this craft.

Unless of course you have four major feasts to provide in the next eight days. In that case it's time to roll up one's sleeves, strap on one's apron and get one a-cookin'!

First up : family dinner on Christmas Eve. Given we would be up at sparrows' the next morning working on Christmas lunch, it was a time to do trusted classics that wouldn't stress us out with excessive work. Familiarity has the further benefit of adding predictability to timing - I do still struggle to get multiple dishes - or worse, dishes with multiple components - up at the same moment and in a timely manner. When my mind and my body are not as one, the schedule suffers, and dinners can run quite late at Chez Ecumer.

So simplicity, predictability. But that doesn't mean we can't be a little bit clever, nor that we need to skimp on flavour or quality.

Tea Smoked Tomato Bruschetta

We bought ourselves a barbeque this winter, being in a new apartment with a bit of a terrace on it that allows us the room for such luxuries. This has let me play around a bit with quick hot-smoking, a cooking approach I haven't used before (being unwilling to stink out the apartment and quite possibly set off smoke alarms).

I'm particularly satisfied with this dish as the cherry tomatoes and the basil also come from our little terrace garden - another first.

Line your wok with vast amounts of foil, at least double thick and leaving plenty of overhang.
Mix together 1/2 cup rice (I don't think the type matters, I use long grain which is our standard GP rice), 1/2 cup raw sugar, 1/2 cup tea leaves (I use a fairly cheap jasmine tea bought in bulk from the Chinese grocer) and place in the foil.*
Put the wok on a burner on high with the lid on (but don't roll the foil over the lid yet) until smoke starts to come out from under the lid - about 2 minutes.
Turn the heat to low, put a suitable rack in the wok to keep the smokees from the smoke mix on the bottom of the wok **, then put a punnet or so of cherry tomatoes*** on the rack.
Put the lid on the wok, roll the foil overhang around the lid to form a seal. Cook for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile toast or grill some thin rounds of bread, with a quick spritz of olive oil to keep them golden and juicy.
Remove the wok from the heat and let sit for another 5 minutes. Remove the lid, take the tomatoes out.
Mix the tomatoes with some finely chopped shallots, a little glug of olive oil to bring the components together, then onto the bread and top with a pinch of chiffonade basil****.

Notes

Why do we like it? The lush sweet tomato is still the star of this dish, it's texture softened somewhat by the cooking but not mushy and the smoke just an accent of depth on the palate. Technique used to enhance, not overpower. "With great smoke comes great responsibility". We must use it in balance, my padawan.

* There are a myriad other flavouring elements you could use for this, but the idea was to celebrate the rich sweet freshness of the tomatoes with an accent of smokiness. That was enough flavouring for me for this dish.

** I've experimented with the resting rack that hangs on the side of the wok, but that lets too much smoke out. I bought a little rack to go on the bottom of the wok but the bars are too far apart to support cherry tomatoes - it works well for larger things like chicken hindquarters though. Last weekend I bought a steamer basket, the type like a metal flower that unfolds in a pot. I haven't had a chance to try it yet though.

*** I cut the cherry tomatoes in half on the principle that they should absorb the smoke better into their insides than their skin. I'm not sure if this has any basis in science.

**** I may have been working in capital adequacy too long. Every time I write the name of that herb I feel the need to write Basel instead.

Fig and Goat Cheese Tartlet

I've done this one before and won't spend much time on it here. The recipe is of course from Donna Hay. We were a bit lucky that we got early figs; they were a little under-ripe but the time in the oven sweetened them up nicely.

The only difference to the recipe is that I used some fresh rosemary (from our garden!!!) instead of chives.

I keep thinking I want to have a little dressing here as the tart is fairly dry - shortcrust pastry, dry sharp goat's curd (and if you can't get curd, use goat's cheese but it'll be drier and I certainly think a little moisture is called for). Maybe a drizzle of good balsamic and good olive oil on the plate (maybe a fig balsamic to carry the flavours through?), or a little salad of some baby green or herbs with a nice moist dressing. Both good ways to introduce a little more juice to the dish.

Which is a lovely dish, a combination of sweet, salty and savoury that I would generally not go for but which somehow balances superbly.

Roast Chicken with Tarragon

I have always held that even a decent roast chicken is a beautiful thing. An excellent roast chicken can be a sublime thing. So another old fave here, a roast chicken with bread salad recipe ex the salad, with a few touches that I hope pushes the dish from decent in the general direction towards excellent.

I did put butter under the skin with the herbs this time, because it's a feast and I can justify being a bit lush. The sauce was made with the pan juices (some of which came from the sub-dermal butter infusion), reduced with a good glass of dry white vermouth and thickened with a little beurre manie.

Golden brown and delicious skin, rich herby & buttery flesh, mellow pool of chickeny and buttery sauce, lovely even cooking from butterflying and a little bit of char on the bottom and crispness on top because we did them on the barbeque under the hood. This allows for a combination of direct char, crisp golden skin from that high barbeque heat (it can get up to 220 C with no great stress) and temperature control that's hard to get in a normal oven. What's not to like?

With the chicken we had some lovely duck-fat potatoes. Just using my favourite roast potato technique, but these are Sebago potatoes (also good roasters) and the fat used was about two tablespoons of rendered duck fat for seven people. That was 12 medium-large sized potatoes, by the way, they shrink a bit when you cook them. I think my logic was one-and-a half per person, plus one for luck. And round up. And that rich lushness of the duck fat ... you can taste it in every bite, but it's not overpowering, I promise.

And also with the main we had one of my favourite vegetable salads. Again I think it's derived from a Donna Hay recipe which I cannot find on a quick search. My version has evolved so that that night's comprised :

1 head baby cos, ripped into small chunks
1 bunch baby asparagus, blanched, refreshed and cut down the middle
2 small zucchini, sliced longwise on the narrowest setting of the mandolin to form ribbons. A veggie peeler would probably do a decent job here too.
Toss all together in a bowl and dress with 1 tbsp lemon juice, 3 tablespoons olive oil, salt & pepper & whatever herbs you have lying around chopped finely. Basil, thyme, chervil, tarragon, oregano are all possibles, but obviously only use herbs that go together.

I love this salad in summer because it's light but substantial, full of greeny goodness and herby flavour. It doesn't take up a hot plate during service, indeed the components don't oxidise too quickly so you can do all the slicing and mixing a few hours ahead and then dress for service.

You can make it a bit lighter and crisper by substituting a small cucumber for a zucchini, and sharper by putting in a finely sliced shallot or half a finely sliced red onion.

Dessert was a very lovely rustic French tart that the Perigueuxcse has done before, with a shortcrust base enhanced with lemon zest, an almond meal paste filling and a topping of finely sliced pears (bosqs if you would like to know). Our prior reference and a photo is here. If you would like the recipe, please ask Cuisine Magazine; it's their IP and being a cooking magazine you'd hope they'd be happy to get recipe requests. If you want details :

Here's their email : editorial@cuisine.co.nz

And the recipe was from Issue 74, Tarte aux Poire et Pomme Rustique.

Lovely dish though; sharp lemon in the crust, rich almond filling, fresh fruity topping. Classic, tasty, crumbly, and some smooth richness. Everything you could hope for in a tart. We had it with cream.

So that's it for The Eve. Tune in shortly to see what we can churn up for The Day.

Happy Feasting,

Ecumer

An Improv Celebration Dinner - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 05:30:00 +0000

But what about that Hypothetical Main Course, I hear you say. We had it the next evening for dinner, with a very nice Henschke Keyneton Estate 2000.

Vegetarians may want to look away at this stage.

Hah! Got you!

Herb-crusted Venison with mash, veg & sauce (serves 2)

Veg - do this first
2 large carrots
1 medium daikon
2 zucchini

Peel the carrots and daikon and put on to steam. The daikon first, then about 20 minutes later the carrots. Total cooking time about an hour. Remove & let cool.

When cool, get a small melon baller (my smallest is 18mm diameter) and pop little balls (hemi-balls, technically) out of the carrot, daikon & zucchini, as many as you can. Set aside.

When you take the venison out to rest (see below), put the zucchini on a medium heat with a little butter, chicken stock or both. Cook until soft, about 5 minutes, turn heat down and add the carrot and radish to heat through.

Venison

1 piece venison
1 tbsp juniper berries
1 tbsp fennel seed
1 tbsp thyme
1 tsp salt

The venison I had was a piece of upper leg meat about 600g. For a very lean and strong flavoured meat with no bones like venison or kangaroo, you don't need big portions. The piece we had could have served four people, but that just means I had the making for a VLT* the next day. Beautifully tender meat, dead lean, but a bit of silverskin on the top surface that I foolishly neglected to remove. Don't repeat my mistake!

* Venison, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich, with some cherry tomatoes from the garden which have just come in. Did you really need to ask?

Grind the herbs and salt together in a mortar or coffee grinder or whatever is your preferred tool until they are reduced to a coarse powder. Make sure the venison is dry (mine came in cryovac so I took the juice off the outside with a paper towel) and coat top and bottom with the herb mix.

Heat your oven to 100 C; heat a saute pan to medium hot. Put a little oil in the pan, then cook the venison about 2 minutes on each side to get the herbs nice and crispy and toasted. Place the meat in the oven in a little roasting dish; I put in the probe thermometer and set the alarm to go off at 135 F. The low oven means the meat will gently slide up to a perfect rare (allowing for 5 degrees of carryover) in about an hour for a piece this size. The meat won't be very stressed so you only need to rest it for 10 minutes.

Sauce

1/2 cup veal glaze
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup port or dry madeira
1 tbsp juniper berries, smacked with the flat of a knife or similar
1 tbsp black peppercorns, smacked with the flat of a knife or similar

Put wines in a small pot with the juniper berries, reduce rapidly until about 1/5 original volume. Add veal jelly, warm through. Strain the solids out, serve.

Mash

Do mash how you like it. I like it lumpy, the Perigueuxse likes it whipped. So we have it whipped, with a little milk mixed in to make it softer. Not so much with the hundreds of grammes of butter that some places use.

I've become a convert to this sear-and-low-roast technique lately. Having overcooked more steaks and beautiful pieces of red meat than I can bear to count, I've found this to be a pretty much foolproof approach. I use it on steaks too. The downside is that you have to have your oven on a lower temperature than can be used for roasting spuds and veg, and it will be tied up while you're doing appetisers. This calls for a bit of forethought - apps need to be stovetop, the spud may be mash, or alternatively you can pre-cook your roast potatoes and reheat them in a pan or crank the oven up to max after taking the meat out.

The veggies - this is a slightly fiddly (and maybe a little twee) but quite pretty presentation I saw in a cookbook years ago but I can't remember which book I'm afraid. You will be left with a bunch of honeycombed veggie carcasses - don't throw them away. I had them for my dinner the next night, chopped fine, cooked in a saute pan to get a little caramelisation going, then mixed in with the leftover mash and cooked in the pan until a nice brown crust formed on the bottom and under the grill until one formed on the top. Which was the last solid food I had for about three days. But that's another story.

Happy venisoning,

Ecumer

An Improv Celebration Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:03:00 +0000

The Perigeuxse got an elephant stamp and a gold star on her report card this year so we had a little dinner at home to celebrate, just the two of us. Of course, me being me, I might have got a little bit carried away.

This isn't carried away. Not even warming up yet.

I'm always intrigued how menus come together. Normally I think of one or two dishes I especially feel like cooking .. or, sometimes, that I feel like eating. Then I think of dishes that would complement the flavours of the primaries, and that ideally will provide complementing flavours and contrasting textures. It sounds obvious, but I promise you there's a whole lot of stuff going on under the surface.

I had an entire menu planned out in that form for the dinner, but almost everything we ate was not what I planned. How could I end up cooking what I didn't mean to? Did I accidentally trip and drop the roast into the deep fryer? Read on.

Smoked Salmon with Italian Accent - Unplanned

I wasn't going to do an appetiser originally, thinking quite reasonably that four courses would be enough. But I was a bit late getting started on the cooking and hunger was starting to nag*, so I looked around to see what could make a snackette.

* Not the Perigueuxse. She never nags.

Hmmm, smoked salmon and salmon roe in the fridge. Classic appetiser. But no baguette, no cream cheese, and no time to make and cook pastry. But we did have some fine ciabatta, we did have mascarpone left over from pizza night**, we did have a couple of fennel bulbs which had lovely little fronds on them. So there you go.

** Yes, mascarpone on pizza, why not. Spread it out thin - no-one wants a big glob of fatty cheese in their cake hole - and of course use the unsweetened mascarpone.

I don't think it needs any other describing other than to mention I sprayed a little olive oil on the bread and grilled it in a pretty hot pan until the outside crisped and started to brown. Oh, and let the bread cool before putting the cheese on or it will get too runny.

Fennel Crusted Scallops in Fennel Broth - Planned

This was the only dish that came out as I originally expected. I have no idea where the idea came from except that scallops are a lovely meat for a starter dish - too strong flavoured (and expensive) for a main course - and so I tend to think around different ways to present them. If I'm sitting in that twice a day control room meeting and I look distracted, maybe I'm thinking about the sequencing of adjustments so that we're not accidentally messing up the ETL ... or maybe I'm thinking about scallops. You be the judge.

Scallops - three large scallops per person is a good amount for a starter. I ground a tablespoon or so of fennel seed in the mortar with a little salt and white pepper, dipped the flat sides of the scallop in the powder and cooked in a medium hot pan with just a little olive oil. I cooked for about two minutes each side, which had the scallops just on the low end of rare. Should have been a little longer but of course each scallop is a different thickness and needs a different time. I need a little more practice.

Broth (serves 2)

- a couple of small fennel bulbs, trimmed and roughly chopped. I would have used one medium sized one but at this time of year it's mostly the small ones about. Reserve the fronds for garnish.

- one small onion, roughly sliced
- 500ml chicken stock, light or dark doesn't matter

- 1-2 small tomatoes, seeded and roughly chopped
- 1 tsp white peppercorns, crushed

- some pastis or anisette

Cook the onion and fennel in a little oil on medium heat to get a gentle browning happening. Add the stock, 500ml of water, the tomatoes and the peppercorns. Simmer for an hour, then drain out all the solids and reduce like crazy until you have about 100ml left. Add the pastis, about a shot I think, cook for another minute or so so that the rawness of the alcohol is reduced but the flavour is still strong.

And what you end up with is a rich, slightly thickened broth with a slight sweetness (from the browning and the tomatoes), balanced acid (from the tomatoes) and a good herbal kick. Now that I think of it, a shot glass of this would also make a nice amuse or cleanser.

Serve with the cooked scallops, garnished with some of the fine bits of the fennel fronds - not the big chunky bits.

Grilled Quail with Green Apple Salad - Semi-Planned

So the next course was meant to be a second appetiser (remember the salmon was not originally part of the line-up). A light dish of boned out quail, smoked over some rosemary (our rosemary bush is going absolutely beresk at the moment) with a very light salad of some julienned green apple, shallot & rocket with a lemon vinaigrette.

At that stage it was getting a bit late, I hadn't started the hypothetical main course yet, and it was pouring down rain outside. This combination of circumstances made me replan thusly

- decide that I didn't want to go out in the rain to smoke the quail on the barbeque's gas ring (with brand new smoke detectors installed I'm completely unwilling to smoke food indoors)
- decide that the quail course should be upgraded to a main course or else we would be eating the main about 9.30 pm
- therefore the quail dish would have to be made a bit more substantial - a whole quail each (not a large main by any shake of the stick, but we were filling up okay) instead of the planned half, and up the substance of the dish with some extra components I had in the kitchen, some cherry tomatoes and pistachios.

Serves 2 people

2 quail, halved and boned

1 green apple

1 doz cherry tomatoes, halved

1 shallot, finely sliced

2 tablespoons pistachio kernels

a couple of handfuls of rocket

Good balsamic, olive oil

Set your oven to 100 C.

If you want to reduce the harshness of the shallots, put them in a bowl of tap-hot water then drain just before assembling the salad.

Toast the pistachios in a medium hot pan to crisp up the outside and enhance the flavour. Chop roughly.

Put the cherry tomatoes flat side down in a non-stick pan on high heat until sizzling and browned with a rich caramelised sweetness.

Season the quail with salt and pepper, saute on a medium-high heat for about 2 minutes each side then put in the oven for about 5 minutes to keep cooking through.

At the very last minute julienne the apple in your trusty mandolin, being careful not to cut your fingers. If you are short of assembly time and need to prepare the apple earlier you will of course keep it in some water acidulated with a dash of lemon juice to stop it going brown.

Mix the rocket, apple and shallot and toss together. Place on plate, then sprinkle over the pistachios and place on the tomatoes.

Top with quail and a little drizzle of balsamic and olive oil.

Why did I change from lemon vinaigrette to balsamic & oil? I could say it was because the stronger flavours from adding the nuts and caramelised tomato needed a richer dressing, but actually I forgot and just did what I normally do on quail salad. Lemon vinaigrette would have been fine.

Duck Fat Oven "Chips" - Unplanned

I had been planning to do mashed potatoes with my hypothetical main but they wouldn't have gone with the quail salad, now would they?

Gladly the potatoes I had were sebagos, good for mashing and also excellent for roasting and chipping. Perhaps the Improvisation Fairy had tapped me on the shoulder that morning and subconsciously caused me to buy a dual-purpose spud.

I'm pretty sure I've explained oven chips before - cut into rough chips, blanch for 5 minutes in copious boiling water, cook in a hot oven until GB&D (about 45 minutes), shaking the heavy roasting pan now and then to rough them up and help them get crisp. Salt well and enjoy, appreciating the marvel of nature that is duck fat.

Glazed Blueberry Millefeuille - Planned

Oh, caught myself there, the scallops were not the only dish that went as planned.

Blueberries are in season just now, but raw they can be a little bit firm and a little tart. I had a vision in my head and on my taste buds of them very lightly poached in a mild syrup to soften them a tad and enhance the sweetness. There they would sit on a plate, glistening gently in the light, not too sweet and not too tart, tempting us with their fruity goodness. And how to deliver this in a manner that is pleasant but not too much work?

A millefueille, obviously; a simple delivery device of puff pastry & whipped cream. There are plenty of recipes for this out there; I used Lorraine Pascal's from the BBC and it was simple and worked well. I didn't sweeten the whipped cream because I think the dish is sweet enough, but that is as always a matter of personal taste. The other major diversion was, as I said, that I poached the blueberries in a light syrup with some triple sec which gives me a less structured and elegant result but a glossier and fruitier presentation. Go on, admit it, your juices are warming up looking at that photo. Gastric juices, that is.

Well, I'll be back shortly with the missing main; we had it the next night as a whole dinner, basically.

Take care, happy cooking, and remember, get every bit of flavour that you can.

Cheers,

Ecumer

Sausage-making at Salon 20

noreply@blogger.com (Moulard) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:55:00 +0000

Moulard is known to give away charcuterie. This is a good thing because, as the learned reader is aware, Moulard makes far more than a single household could possibly eat, store or freeze. Moulard’s freezer and Ms Moulard’s patience attests to the truth of this.

So Moulard spreads the love. The OGF Bacon challenge attests to this. As does the numerous accounts of Moulard ringing a doorbell, more or less at random, and handing over a bag of hot smoked anduille, jerky, pig jam, or whatever happened to keep Moulard amused the night before.

One day, one of the said recipients of such largess, asked Moulard a favour. Moulard has been known to get a bag of duck breasts from some benefactor, with a winsome smile, simply comes the request to “experiment”.

Moulard expected such a request.

“Would you run a charcuterie day at my Salon?”

Moulard was not expecting such a request.

After much prevaricating, Moulard agreed and set a plan of action into motion. First, Moulard had to figure out how to keep up to 12 people gainfully occupied for an afternoon. Moulard needed additional firepower. Thankfully our very own Ecumer was able to come to the rescue and augment Moulard's equipment.

And so, on the appointed day, Moulard filled his car with two Kitchen-aid mixers, along with their mincing and stuffing attachments; a medieval empire worth of spices, a box of curing supplies, drying racks, cutting boards, boning knives, fresh sausage casings, 5 kilograms diced pork shoulder, along with a slab of belly destined to go to Ecumer as a maple bacon thank you…

And a bottle of wine. Because, well, one does not want to arrive empty handed.

Which was lucky because, as it turns out the food, drink and refined conversation were to be an integral part of Salon culture.

But eventually, once everyone was well fed, gossipped and any
sense of squeamishness had been vanquished, the Salon got down to business for the rest of the afternoon.

In next to no time, the linking was completed on the first batches of Salon 20 Toulouse and Italian sausages.

Moulard knew his job was done when someone proclaimed "These look just like the ones in a shop".

Saucisson Serenade

noreply@blogger.com (Moulard) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 06:17:00 +0000

Moulard works hard. Moulard plays hard. Moulard's idea of a holiday is to see how many new types of sausages he can make in a fortnight.

So on day one of Moulard’s mid-winter holiday Moulard goes off to the butcher and comes away with 5 kilos of pork shoulder, 2 kilos of back fat and a large slab of pork belly. Those pesky beef sausages can wait until next week Moulard thinks to himself.

Day 2 - Savoury Bacon in the style of Pancetta

Despite the bravado of Day One, Moulard knows what side of the butter the bread is on and therefore starts his holiday by making bacon for Ms. Moulard. Because while Moulard might dream of making 14 new and exotic forms of charcuterie, Moulard knows that there is only SO much space in the freezer, and even with tiny experimental batches, Ms Moulard's usually infinite patience will wear thin.

Day 3 – Mushroom and Pinenut Sausages

A while back Moulard found a version of a Chinese dried sausage that included wild mushrooms in it. Moulard had thought about adapting a Sauisson Sec to make a European version. But in the end Moulard decided to go with a fresh sausage instead. The result was a sausage with sautéed Porcini and Swiss Browns reduced in Marsala with some pan roasted Pinoli for a bit of crunch. A smashing success that bears repeating as soon as Mouldard can afford another giant bag of Porcini.

Day 4 – Longaniza de Aragon

There is a tradition is some locales to cure sausages using vinegar. It was something Moulard wanted to try. Moulard was afraid that Ms Moulard would make a quip about dinner at the Inn at Bree, or perhaps a preference for Longaniza de Legolas. Moulard was willing to risk it. Moulard was also interested in the fact that while the sauages were fresh, tradition allowed for them to be aged a while to allow flavours to develop.

Moulard had heard that using vinegar as a cure affects the texture of the sausage. Perhaps next time Moulard will cut back on the vinegar.

Days 5-7 – Spanish Longaniza

Ms Moulard has had a hankering for cold smoked chorizo for a long time. But Moulard’s smoker is not really set up for proper cold smoking. With temperatures set to plunge, Moulard decided now was an opportune time to try to see what could be done to keep temperatures as cold as possible. But Moulard chose to hedge his bets and found a sausage that was meant to be cold smoked first, and then hot smoked to finish it off. Moulard figured if the cold smoke effort got too hot, it wouldn’t really matter if the sausage was going to be hot smoked later on.

In the end Ms. Moulard was right. After 7 days of sausage making Moulard thought that discretion was the better part of valour and decided to put the casings away for the time being. There are only so many sausages that one can safely store. Because, truth to tell, the freezer still has packages of Merguez, Hot Italian and perhaps a lost Anduille or two lurking in its recesses.

Perhaps if Moulard had chosen to venture into the realms of fermented sausages; or air cured ones rather that fresh and semi-fresh that would either have to be eaten or frozen then things might have been different.

Moulard might think so. Ms Moulard couldn’t possibly comment.

On Golden Gate Fond : Of Michelin Stars

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 15:01:00 +0000

Michelin stars are not a big part of Australian dining life, being how the Michelin people don't do guides for Australia. It's as simple as that. But they do for San Francisco, and there are two restaurants that get three stars ("exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey ... one always eats here extremely well, sometimes superbly"). There are three more that get two stars ( "excellent cuisine, worth a detour ... skilfully and carefully crafted dishes of outstanding quality"). And then some thirty-nine with one star ( "a place offering cuisine to a very high standard"). We went to a couple of those.

There are a couple more classifications at the lower end of the scale. "Bib Gourmand" status notes a restaurant as offering "good food at moderate prices". At the lower end of the Michelin scale is "recommended" which I gather means the restaurant has good food, while falling short of the star ratings, and does not represent the very good value of the "Bib Gourmand". But still, let me stress, good food. We went to one of those too.

And there are other raters too - Fodor, Zagat, and lately Yelp (for what that's worth). So what is a visitor to do in the face of this information overload?

Going to San Francisco for a seven day jaunt involved some planning. The amount of that planning that was about food might be considered excessive by some, but for those who know me it won't be a surprise. For those who don't know me, let me say that Calvin Trillin is one of my role models and that should explain at least somewhat. I think I mentioned in a previous blog that all our evening meals and several of our lunches were planned before we even enplaned. (The Perigueuxse is more than kind in enduring this behaviour, she even encourages it, knowing that I can tend to fret if I am unsure from where my next meal is coming. Whereas if I know I am booked for some fine Peruvian cuisine at 7pm then I can deal with anything a foreign country throws at me.).

Not all, in fact only a few, of the restaurants were as you would call fine dining. Expense aside, you can't eat fancy food every night, so there was a mix of local casual, fancy, event-driven and market dining. They were picked on a combination of personal experience, recommendations from trusted friends, blogs, Chowhound and Urbanspoon reviews.  That mix of inputs gives a better feel for the spirit of the food and the venue, and I find that a much better way to work out what I am likely to enjoy than a Good Food Guide (or local equivalent) review in isolation.

I was interested, maybe a little excited, to see that both of the fine dining restaurants we picked were Michelin starred - just one star, I'm afraid, but I might aim higher next time just to see what "excellent cuisine, worth a detour" is like. Also one of the restaurants I visited on my last trip in 2006 is one-starred, which was interesting too in hindsight.

I've already said that we didn't have any bad food in San Francisco, only good and better. So it will be no surprise that the Michelin'd restaurants were both very good indeed.

And the first obvious question is, how do Melbourne and other Australian restaurants rate, if we could get the French out here for a once-over?   It's a tough call because I don't do a great deal of fine dining and that's definitely where those stars are at.

One of the starred places we ate at was Alexanders' Steakhouse (yes, a Michelin starred steakhouse. You'll probably see why when I get to blogging it) The two contenders that come to mind for quality of food, ambience and service comparable to that in Melbourne are Rockpool and The Point. But I've only eaten at the bar at Rockpool (81 cents per chip!!! It will be a long time before I forgive them for that.) and only been to a special-menu Melbourne Food and Wine Festival event at The Point so I can't really compare on a steak - vs - steak basis. Perigeuexse! Dust off the credit cards, we're going out for some steak!

The second starred restaurant we visited in SF was Ame, a modern Japanese restaurant which was largely superb (barring one bad ordering decision on my part. Octopus sushi - too subtle for me.). Again I don't eat a lot of high-end Japanese food in Melbourne so I don't have a direct comparison. When I think about Kenzan, a one-hatted Japanese place in Melbourne I dined at recently, Ame is all over it in terms of decor, ambiance, innovation, service and quality of food. Comparing Ame to Ezard, a GFG two-hat that does modern pan-Asian food in a pretty formal and fine dining manner, all those aspects seem to be about in line - plus or minus a little bit here and there.

The one-starred restaurant we visited last time in San Francisco, Masa's, reminds me somewhat of Est  (a GFG three-hat) in Sydney. Modern Euro-American or Euro-Australian cuisine without being bogged down in fussy techniques, a fantastic quality of service that manifested in realising how good the staff were only after they had anticipated your needs and met them without you even noticing.  So one GFG hat doesn't seem to equal a Michelin star. Three GFG hats seems similar to one Michelin star. So does a Michelin star equate very roughly, based on a sample size of two or so, to that number of GFG hats minus one or so? Maybe.

And the second obvious question is, so what? The key to food Nirvana is to find what you like. Reviews, guides, blogs, lists, stars, chef's hat's; these all just give you some of the information to help you decide where next to spend your precious dining dollar. To take just one source is either limiting your decision making ability, or deliberately choosing to give up your choice in favour of the critics.

Some months back at a shared table event, we met a couple who were doggedly working their way through the Good Food Guide's hatted restaurants ("Oh yes, we've done Vue De Monde. We're doing Verge in a couple of weeks") with the expectation they would make it through before the next issue came out. That would require about two restaurants per week, just so you know. Good for them, they would experience a great range of food which would probably broaden their minds, palates and possibly waistlines. Me, I prefer to make my own mind up based on as much as I can possibly find out. I don't "do" restaurants, I dine at them and see how well we suit each other's tastes. It's an adventure, and a Korean fried chicken joint can be as exciting as a fine dining pan-Asian restaurant can be as exciting as a heretofore unexperienced version of Red Guard Pork or a reaaly cood chicken schnitzel sandwich, depending on your mood and expectations.

So what am I saying with all this? Go out; eat; think about it; find what other people have said, and then make your own mind up.

Happy culinary self-determination,

Ecumer

Foggy Tuesday Night

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:50:00 +0000

Now as I've often said, this is not a meteorological blog. But getting dense heavy fog in the CBD is quite rare so I thought I'd bung a couple of photos out there.

Here's a view of the Arts Centre Spire tonight.

Kind of foggy, eh? You can just see the top of the spire.

For comparison, here's a normal view (and may I say how glad I am that I decided to start compiling stock footage?). Not the exact same angle, but you get the point, plus I'm not going outside again for another shot. It's wicked cold.

And here's Flinders St Station in the mist. Southgate, immediately behind it in the picture and all of 100m or so distant is quite invisible.

So there you go. Foggy Tuesday night in the CBD. If you're in a nice warm suburb, you have my envy for tonight. Normal food blogging will resume as soon as possible.

Cheers,

Ecumer

On Golden Gate Fond : Five O'Clock Drinkies at Luna Park

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:01:00 +0000

Luna Park San Francisco
694 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA, 94110
http://www.lunaparksf.com/

Not even close to a review this time, folks, just a little mini-post to extol the joys of five o'clock drinkies. Not a habit we indulge in every day, or even many days, in fact, hardly any days at all now that I consider the issue. But after a busy day of taking the cable car, walking around the piers, going to the baseball (Go As!) and hitting the sci-fi bookshops in the Mission district, it can be a joy to plant yourself in a quiet bar at a quiet time of the cycle, have a little rest, and find another reason to be happy with the world.

Sangria (with fresh fruit $9) was the Periguexce's choice. I had a little taste, and truth to tell it was not the finest sangria I've had. The spices in the mix hadn't integrated, and the colour was a strangely lurid pink. Not bad by any means but not fantastic. Maybe later in the night the mix would have meshed better.

Your dear old Ecumer picked the 'Fancy Flight of Cocktails', because I run on the principle that you should always try as many things as possible. The flight was (clockwise from top)

- an Icebreaker - grape vodka with Vin de Glaciere and frozen grapes. I loved this, it was dry but had a mild fresh-grapey fruitiness to it. I'm not sure precisely what the Vin de Glaciere is - it's a generic French term for ice wine, wine made from grapes that have traditionally been frozen on the vine, but nowadays some winemakers do it with freezers (which is much cheaper and more reliable than hoping for an early frost). There are a couple of wineries in Oregon and California doing this and I suspect it was from one of them, although the cocktail list didn't specify and there's none on the wine list. Ah, sweet cocktail mystery.

- a Roadrunner - Don Julio Blanco tequila, Chili, Sage, Prickly Pear & fresh lime. The chili was a bit of an overpowering force in this one. The skewerd sage leaf and pickled chili on the top wafted mild hints of flavour around but there was a significant chili kick lurking in the main drink. Sweet prickly pear and complex tequila flavours. A drink that danced with sweet, fruity, herbal and hot, and came down just slightly on the hot side.

- a Mint Julep - Bulleit Bourbon, fresh mint and sugar syrup. A traditional, aggressively smokey classic, served charmingly in the traditional pewter tankard. I felt as if I should be called 'Colonel'.

And that was all, one quick drinkie (admittedly a multiphasic one for me), and back to the apartment to regroup before an evening of .... going out to eat.

Don't be distressed by the emptiness of the bar. We arrived there just as they were opening and setting up, and the staff were very accommodating. I gather that it's a busy and popular bar and eatery at times later than 5 in the afternoon, and a quick look at the menu showed some interesting dishes in what I would call a pub or bar menu style - burgers, pastas, grills, salads.

Happy Five O'Clocking,

Ecumer

Seafood Saturday Night

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:35:00 +0000

So, a quiet Saturday night with our friend the hypermanically gregarious MicMac. Just the three of us, no pressure, a quiet Saturday night. Probably a DVD to fill in the empty bits where conversation pauses. Which also gives the option to experiment a wee bit with the food and see what happens, without having to apologise to a lot of people for burnt spuds.

Not that kind of experiment.

Cocktail Experimentation : Well, lets start with a cocktail. St Germain is an elderflower flavoured liqueur. It has a herbal flavour with aspects of peach, grapefruit and pear flavours, and to my taste something a little cucumbery. It's light, aromatic and herbal, and we mix it with some white rum, ice, soda, a lemon slice and lemon juice as a savoury aperitif. Light, crisp, savoury-and-sweet, refreshing. If that's what you're after in a cocktail, this will do it.

Appetiser Experimentation : Salmon Tartare. No, not experimentation really, I've done this stacks of time before. Raw salmon, finely chopped, lightly seasoned, mixed with some finely chopped cucumber and shaped in a ring mould to get the neat cylindrical shapes. The observant viewer will note a little drizzle of oil at the bottom of the spoon; that's some coriander and green chili infused olive oil to put a little pep on the palate.

Mussel Experimentation : Well, slightly. I've cooked mussels a time or three but not jimmied with the sauce like this.

- take some mussels, let's say 1 kg counting shells to make a generous starter for three (and let's use Australian blacks, please, leave the NZ greenlips for landfill as they deserve) and drop them into a hot pan with a little water (1/2 cup) and a little white vermouth (1/2 cup again). Put the lid on and cook 3-4 minutes.

- Take the mussels out and adjust the heat so the remaining liquid (which now includes all the briny water and juice that has come out of the mussels) is at a light boil to reduce slightly. If you're in a kindly mood, take off the second shell from the mussels. This will make them a little easier to eat. Keep them warm (warming oven if you have one, or a piece of foil over the top).

- Remove the cooking liquid from the heat. Beat together three egg yolks. Combine them with the mussel liquid by tempering (stir the eggs vigourously while adding a tablespoon of hot liquid; repeat; repeat, until the egg mixture is hot enough that it can be added to the rest of the liquid without scrambling). Gently reheat the liquid, stirring, until it is thickened to your liking by the eggs.

- if the mussels are a bit cool, warm them in the sauce; otherwise, pour the sauce over them in some nice bowls. Garnish with chives, serve with lovely toasted bread (buttered if you dare!) to soak up the sauce. I recommend a fork and a spoon.

So you get nice, fresh tender mussels and a sauce redolent with their briny origin but made rich and luxurious to the mouth by the egg yolks. If you want to go completely luxe, whack a pinch of saffron strands in at the mussel cooking stage and you'll get a complex bitter pungency of flavour and bright, bright yellow colours to boot.

Tuna experimentation : Make a savoury tomato sauce of roasted tomatoes, roasted red pepper, passata, sauteed shallots, capers and a little white wine vinegar for extra piquancy. Lightly grill your sushi-grade tuna, cut in slices and serve with some crispy brown pan-fried potatoes (because you need a starch with your main) and a nice green salad (because you need some greens with your main).

This dish was okay. As you can see I overcooked the tuna a little, not disastrously but past it's best point. The sauce was good but the strong fried flavour of the potatoes was a bit of a distraction from the tuna. If I _had_ to have a starch with this, some polenta would have been better, but probably this dish is more appropriate as a starter anyway.

So there you go. We experiment so we can learn, and sometimes just for the fun of it. And experimenting with friends in a consequence-free environment (there's a good pizza place just a couple of blocks away in case everything goes completely pear-shaped), well what could be better than that?

Happy experimentating,

Ecumer

On Golden Gate Fond : Capturing the Zeitgeist with Food Trucks and Queues

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 09:03:00 +0000

Off the Grid Food Truck Market : Fort Mason

Fort Mason Centre

Cnr Laguna & Marina Blvd, San Francisco

http://offthegridsf.com/

Food trucks are so hot right now. Not just any old food truck serving sandwiches or burritos or kebabs or pie floaters, mind you. Americans are standing in line for an hour in the blazing heat or freezing cold for specialist trucks serving lobster rolls, Korean bbq tacos, cupcakes or creme brulees*. They are even being used to cater weddings. So we could not go to San Francisco without taking a deep swig from the giant mug of zeitgeist that is the Off the Grid Fort Mason food truck market.

*Technically that might be a stall rather than a truck. It's still a lot more mobile than a shop.

Now that is a seething mass of humanity.

Off The Grid (I'm assuming the name is ironic as a more organised, publicised endeavour I've not often seen) organises a series of food truck markets at different places around the city but Fort Mason is the mac daddy of them all, with thirty or more trucks and stalls in the Fort Mason parking lot every Friday evening. Come early, eat hard, and be prepared for a long walk from and to your car. But a long walk is probably good for you.

Did I mention the crowds?

Obviously there's no way I can comment on a meaningful portion of thirty vendors all doing multiple dishes. But I don't think there was any bad food there, just good and better. So let me give some of my impressions and optimisation tips.

Be prepared to queue. A long line is probably a leading indicator of quality.

Although sometimes the queues can be a bit indistinct. Don't be afraid to ask the person in front of you what you're queueing for.

Highly specialised vendors' queues are likely to move faster as there is less choice and customisation to be dealt with. If the food is pre-prepared that will be even quicker - the empanada and creme brulee lines moved like the wind.

Don't over-think it. If you're at the front of the El Huarache Loco line, you should probably order a huarache.

A huarache is a fresh cooked tortilla, here with a bean & huitlacoche stuffing between the layers of the dough before frying. Topped with salsa, coriander, sour cream, onions and some pork carnitas. Huitlacoche is a fungal disease* that grows on corn, giving it a strong musty flavour (although with all the other flavours in this dish it didn't really stand out to me). And carnitas is pork, normally shoulder, either slow-cooked and then grilled to caramelise, or confited in pork lard until luscious. Either way it's great, and so was this. Oh, and some crumbly queso blanco on top.

* Sounds bad? Then don't read this. But it's a regional treasure, if an acquired taste.

On the other hand, if the Perigueuxse has just ordered the huarache, maybe you should get a gordita. The gordita, or "little fat one", is named for the thick and puffy fresh-fried tortilla. This one has fried spiced ground pork and the same toppings as the huarache, plus I personally have a higher tolerance for sriracha chili sauce than she does. Also delicious.

And at the empanada stand, well ... between the short queues and the fantastic empanadas (firm, thin, perfectly cooked pastry, moist spicy fillings of chicken, beef or veggies), we just about overdosed on these.

Fusion cooking is a big part of the trendy good truck vibe. Exciting combinations of Asian with American or Latin American techniques and ingredients abound. Here, tuna tartare with a touch of spicy sauce on crispy wonton skins.

I didn't try this one, but it appears to be a hot dog with toasted seaweed garnish, wasabi mayo and bonito shavings. I imagine it had strong complex flavours.

There may or may not be a correlation between the bling of the truck and the quality of the food. The line for this one was so long that I didn't get to find out.

Kung Fu Tacos do grilled, stir fried and roasted Chinese food with some south-east Asian garnishes on small tortillas. Their truck is not as bright as some, but it is still quite shiny and the food was good.

From top, clockwise : Char siu with hot chili sauce & papaya salsa; Grilled beef with carrot, coriander & spicy Asian salsa; Roast duck with hoisin sauce and papaya salsa (there was a mango salsa but I don't like mango and they kindly substituted). A bunch of good strong flavours, nicely cooked meat, and all wrapped up so you can eat it in one hand. I would stand in line for this. In fact, I did.

And of course the creme brulee stand. We had vanilla bean brulee and a dolce de leche brulee. Both great textures and crispy tops. The dolce was a bit sweet for my tastes but if you had a sweeter tooth then you would love it.

So a few final words of advice.

- go as a group
- expect crowds, noise and queues
- find a good place to rendezvous; maybe leave someone to lay claim on your spot against interlopers. If that's a tall person, it'll be easier to find them afterwards
- split up, with each of you getting multiples of dishes from a single vendor. This way you only ever have to queue once each and you get it out of the way at the start.
- rendezvous back at your selected point, sit back and enjoy the fruits of your optimisation and the fantastic variety of food available.

And our very great thanks to Mike & Rich, Tom & Sam, and Lexington of course, who were our guides to the market.

Happy food-trucking!

Ecumer

On Golden Gate Fond : The Snapshots

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 06:54:00 +0000

I know, I know. I've said, more times than I can count, that this is a food blog, not a sociology blog, nor an etymology blog, nor an architecture blog, nor any other type of blog. But today, it's going to be a photography blog. Just because I can. So note well - there will be no food at all in this post. Well, maybe one mention. Two at the most. But that's all.

The Golden Gate Bridge from Mason St just inside the Presidio. Did I mention it was foggy & rainy when we visited? Yep. And still I somehow managed to get sunburnt.

The bridge from underneath the south end. We see bridges from a distance, and zip over them in cars in a minute or three, and tend not to notice them too much. But when we are stopped nearby and get a chance to look, we realise what great monsters of engineering they are.

America the melting pot : Exhibit A. Although in this case the pot may be a degchi.

A reflection of a beautiful turn-of-the-last-century building in the mirrored surface of an iron and glass modern office building. It probably says something about the nature of perception and of progress. Or maybe it was shiny and caught my eye.

In the Mission district the little grates that stop people stealing the plants on the street are cast with traditional symbols from the Day of the Dead. No, not the George Romero zombie movie. But that would be cool too.

Yes, it is a very hilly city. The Bay Bridge in the distance from somewhere near Presidio Heights. Note that all the cars have their front wheels turned in toward the curb. That's to stop them rolling down the hill if the handbrake fails. And if you don't park that way, they will give you a parking ticket.

Some parts are hillier than others. The compulsory shot of Lombard Street.

We can't go to America without going to the baseball, although I must say the Oakland A's disappointed us that day. I'm happy to report that the local baseball hot dog, a giant herbed, grilled bratwurst, was actually pretty good eatin'.

Hilly. Streets. Oh my, the hilly streets. I walked about halfway up this street to get a photo looking down (which didn't turn out to be a good shot anyway) and had to stop for a little rest. Naturally a tiny wisp of a young lady pushing a huge pram with an infant in it went up the hill past me at flanking speed without so much as a puff. Poor old Ecumer is not as young as he once was.

Happy snapping,

Ecumer

On Golden Gate Fond : Sticker Shock Eating Out in San Francisco

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:59:00 +0000

Fisherman's Wharf. Be careful - those shrimp are dearer than they look!

One thing I need to be reminded of every time I go to the United States is that sales tax is not included in the price. American pricing is a maze of state and local tax and duties that the locals just automatically adjust their expectations for but which can baffle the casual visitor, especially us poor Australians who expect the price of something to be what it says on the menu.

San Francisco is a fine case in point. Say my main course is $30 on the menu. Add a state sales tax of about 8.5%; add the city health care surcharge, which every restaurant does differently (some a flat $ charge per customer, some as a % add-on to the marked price, and some incorporate it into their cost structure so it doesn't appear separately) but which mostly seemed to be about 4%; add a tip of 15 - 20%. The $30 main course is now up to about $40. And I haven't even ordered a refreshing beverage yet. Extend that to a moderatelyy fancy meal for 4 at $100 each and you're talking an extra $100 or more overall.

That said, you get used to it quickly enough, and even with a 30% layer of costs I found almost all the food that we had to be good and good value. Helped somewhat by the resource-driven fury of the AUD : USD exchange rate at the time of our visit.

Happy calculating!

Ecumer

On Golden Gate Fond : Limon (The Original)

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:40:00 +0000

Limon

524 Valencia St. SF,

CA 94110

http://www.limon-sf.com/

"Why are you going to Limon?" asked Lexington's neighbour. "They've opened Limon Rotisserie, it's much more now and with it." And while the idea of smoky flavoured, spicy tangy, fresh-off-the-rotisserie Peruvian style chicken does have a certain appeal, in fact a great appeal, the simple fact was that Limon was a mere two blocks away and Limon Rotisserie was way the heck downtown. You can't argue with logistics. Especially when the logistics will bring you in close contact with lively ceviche, lush empanadas and other fine Peruvian food in short order.

And Limon itself is lively. The waitstaff are quick and efficient getting you seated, taking orders, bringing drinks. There's a big shiny bar, seating upstairs and downstairs, and the overall ambiance is a slightly odd mix of soft gentle lighting tending to subdue the impact of some very bright decorations, fittings and wall colours. But this is not an interior design blog. What about the food? The menu is divided into small plates (<$10)and large plates (about $20); we found that six small plates and a side were enough for three of us and gave us a great range of dishes to try, but if you want the famous Churrasco you'd better go straight for the large dishes. I would have loved to try some of the more obscure dishes like the beef heart skewers but that'll have to wait for another visit.

Empanadas Veggie ($7.25 for two). Brilliant pastry with a textural combination of crisp to the bite but soft to chew, and nicely thin to boot. The filling of mushrooms, corn, spinach and mascarpone was rich, full flavoured and delightful, fresh lime for an accent and what appeared to be a green chili and herb mayonnaise or maybe there was some mustard in there. Something hot, but not too hot.

Ceviche de Mixto ($9.75), a ceviche of fish, shrimp and calamari lightly bathed in a citrus marinade and served on a bed of Peruvian corn (large firm kernels that are savoury not sweet; almost like a cannelini bean in fact, and the long ago geneticf predecessor of the super-sweet corn we see in the markets) with a garnish of red onion, herbs and chili. Just the right amount of acid marinade to highlight the fresh fish and the steady baseline of the corn.

Calamares Rellenos ($9.75), some tender small squidlets stuffed with tacu-tacu, traditionally a mixture of beans, rice and any leftover herbs or vegetables, served with artichokes, spinach and peas and a creamy, slightly fishy saffron sauce. Not an obvious set of ingredients for a Peruvian dish, but who knows where inspiration comes from. Ensalada Russa is found on tapas menus all over the world (and is on the menu at Limon) and has some similarities to this dish. Maybe there's an influence? Anyway, it was a good dish; tender calamari, robust vegetable flavours, balanced rather than spicy and a good counterpoint to the spicier things we ate that night.

Empanadas again, this time Empanadas Carne ($9.75). Same pastry, same sauce, but with a beautifully lush-textured and fragrantly spiced braised beef filling. I invite you to imagine moist, rich, tasty fibres of beef falling apart in your mouth for a few seconds. Done? Good.

Yuca fries ($3.25), because you have to order a farinaceous side, don't you? Actually yuca is a pretty dull vegetable. These were nicely crisp on the outside and kind of puffy on the inside, well fried and not greasy, but yuca is yuca. Nothing personal, little root, you are highly nutritious and a key to feeding a third of the world's population, but I'd rather have the sweet potato fries.

Pescado Limon ($10), deep fried snapper fillet over spinach and crispy potatoes. I remember the snapper was crisp, lightly battered and cooked to a good degree of firmness, and that I wolfed the potatoes down. The sauce and the spinach did not stick in my mind I'm afraid.

Lexington's favourite dish, the Quinotto de Vegetales ($8.75) was a generous and neatly formed stack of quinoa cooked in a risotto style to make a firm, creamy-textured mass mixed with vegetables (mushrooms, corn, peas and red pepper) topped with sweet potato chips. A soft-flavoured corn and butternut squash sauce formed a moat around it. A dish of contrasting textures and balanced flavour that again shows the variety in Peruvian cuisine.

And we had some pleasant Peruvian beers and the house version of a mojito. One of those small cultural/legal differences that sticks in your memory happened - I was utterly baffled when the waiter explained that the cocktail was made with sake rather than rum, in fact I was sure I had misheard his charming Latin American accent. But Lexington informs me that in San Francisco they have different forms of liquor license, and the one for serving spirits is much more expensive than the one for beer and wine. Lots of restaurants get the cheaper one and use sake as a substitute for rum or vodka, as it is fermented not distilled and is therefore a wine. A double shot of this mild-flavoured alcohol does the job of a shot of spirits and doesn't make much difference in a strong-flavoured cocktail like a mojito. So there you go. In Victoria a liquor license for a restaurant or a bar covers everything, so the distinction hadn't even occurred to me.

And we enjoyed Limon very much. In Melbourne, with practically no immigration from Latin America, the cuisines of those countries consists of dreadful Tex-Mex chains and a happily growing but still tiny number of small cafes mostly run by Australians who have travelled and fallen in love with the food. Getting a sophisticated, modern version of a traditional cuisine like this is a treat, and a good value treat at that.

Comer feliz,

Ecumer

On Golden Gate Fond : Maverick

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 08:22:00 +0000

Maverick
3316 17th Street San Francisco
CA 94110

It's a funny part of town, Mission Dolores. Mildly gentrified (as far as you can gentrify given San Francisco's constricting building codes), home to some of the more exciting and innovative clusters of restaurants and other eateries. Walk a block in one direction and you find the magnificent Basilica Dolores; walk a couple of blocks in the other direction and you are in gang territory. Walk about four or five blocks in a slightly different direction and you're at Folsom Street (and I'm not going to provide any links about Folsom Street). Kind of like Brunswick Street in Fitzroy but with more basilicas and gangs and somewhat less junkies.

So there we were, off the Jumbo about ten hours, desperately lagged and ensconced in the flat of our dear friend Lexington's neighbours. We'd been for a little walk to familiarise with the neighbourhood, been up for a look at the view from the Legion of Honour Museum (it was rainy and foggy, so that would be an authentic SF experience). And Lexington had us booked in for dinner at Maverick, which would prove to be a treat.

But make sure you know what direction you want to walk.

Maverick is a smallish double-shopfront restaurant, started some years ago (2006?) to do modern takes on American classics, or so Lexington tells me. While there is still some emphasis on local produce, the "American classics" thing has kind of faded away with several changes of chef, and what is left is stylish modern food, good technique and flavours but not overly fussy. A great balance.

The restaurant itself is fairly small, warm and cosy inside from a chill drizzly spring evening. Small tables, warm dark reds and browns as colour highlights, generous table spacing, not overcrowded, professional fit-out but not with that over-architected feel a lot of modern places have. The staff the night we were there were pleasant, very professional, clearly knowledgeable and passionate about the food and wine.

Dinner started with a small amuse of a fennel cordial spritzer. I don't think I've ever had a sweet amuse before and it wouldn't have occurred to me to make one, but this was light, fresh, cleanly flavoured, aromatic and well balanced. A hit, I say.

Remember a few years back when the Americans were annoyed at the French, and hardcore patriots were eating "Freedom Fries"*? One of Maverick's cocktails is the Freedom 75, a take on the French 75 which is a cocktail of champagne with gin, lemon juice and sugar. So we had to try them and, another combination which wouldn't have occurred to me turned out to be very nice indeed.

* and "Freedom Toast" for breakfast one assumes

Lexington's appetiser was a salad of baby beetroot (gold and what I think of as the traditional red) with frisee, pistachio puree, crumbled pistachio with a slight burnt sugar component, and powdered feta to give it a salty kick ($12). Lots of technique, great mix of textures and flavours and yet not overdoing it.

My appetiser was burrata cheese (that's a type of mozzarella mixed with additional fresh cream) with boquerones (pickled white anchovies), finely shaved asparagus, some crostini and a little garnish of pine nuts and olive oil ($12). Again, cream cheese and pickled anchovies - not an obvious mix, but the creaminess was more a foil to the asparagus and the crispy bread than to the anchovies, which came in as a sharp and salty cross-taste that balanced nicely.

The Perigueuxse chose the "Baltimore Crab Fluffs" ($12). She has been a huge fan of crab cakes ever since her first trip to Washington DC, as indeed am I, but getting a decent one in Australia? We have been routinely disappointed. So all the more happy were we to see some here. It was a light fluffy crab-cake mixture in a light batter, deep fried to give a firm outside and a juicy crabby inside. Elements on the plate included precisely rolled shaves of cucumber for crunch and cool, scatters of frisee ("winter chicory" on the menu) for bitter, and a remoulade for creamy, acid, salty and mustardy. A fine dish.

Lexington, being mostly vegetarian (although she can be led astray by the peer pressure of such unevolved reprobrates as me, as you will see as the week goes on), had the Pea Agnolotti ($20) as her main/entree (trying to be bilingual here). The agnolotti were filled with house made mascarpone and spring peas, served with pea tendrils (and a few little peas along with them) in a broth flavoured with spring onion, parmesan, some chili and some shiso herb. It was a dish of simple ingredients but and complex flavours without being over-rich. Lexington let me have a little taste.

The Perigueuxse's entree/main was Sonoma Duck Breast ($23) served with duck merguez sausage on the corners of the plate providing a smoky-hot accent; poached and grilled baby fennel providing an architectural lift and an aromatic presence on the plate; and smears of medjool date and kumquat purees bringing a sweet balance to the rich game and grilled vegetable elements. It was a great dish; my only criticism is that the thin ends of the fennel had been reduced to a dried inedible chewiness through the cooking process. But that's a minor quibble in the face of excellently cooked duck and splendidly balanced sauces.

Your dear old Ecumer felt the weight of tradition on his shoulders. Southern Fried Chicken ($24) with dirty red rice, broccolini and red eye gravy was calling out and had to be answered. And I'm glad I did. Two pieces of chicken (one breast with wing, one Maryland) had been floured, spiced, egged, breaded and cooked in a skillet until they were perfect. Crisp on the outside, impeccably juicy on the inside. It was an extravagant serve; I saw a couple at the next table sharing it as a main, but Lexington and the Perigueuxse were busy with their own mains so I soldiered on, plucky trooper that I am when it comes to pan-fried chicken.

The broccolini was forgettable (in no way bad, I just don't care for broccolini), the red eye gravy was thick, rich and hearty. The dirty rice was not dirty rice as I know it; there was no liver, no gizzards, no scallions. But it was a nice mix of white rice and red rice cooked together to form a nice thick base for the chicken and gravy. Let's call it an interpretation and note that it was good.

We were full, we were jet-lagged, but the lure of dessert is always with us. Particularly when they look a bit exciting. The Perigueuxse and I shared a Chocolate Tres Leche cake ($8) with spicy chocolate ice cream. The cake, whose three milks, in case you were wondering, are cream, condensed milk and evaporated milk, was a dense (but not heavy) but soft sponge, moist with a decent dark chocolate warmth to it and a litle of the syrup pooling underneath on the plate. The ice cream had an assertive kick of chili and other spices, and a wafer-thin nutty praline brought crispness to the dish.

Lexington chose the Thyme-shortbread ($8) served with Meyer lemon curd and mascarpone. Politeness (and fullness) prevented me from lunging across the table to taste it, but I remember she was impressed with the savoury dimension the thyme added to the sweet biscuits and with the lightness and delicacy of the curd and cheese.

So there we go, first meal out on this trip to the Golden State and it was just excellent. Out we went into the drizzly, chilly darkness to get home and some rest.

Happy Mavericking,

Ecumer

On Golden Gate Fond : There and Back Again

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:37:00 +0000

The other reason we haven't posted much lately is that just after moving house the planets aligned and we trotted off on a lovely little holiday to San Francisco. We had our flights booked, visa-less pre-approval sorted, restaurants booked for every dinner and almost every lunch, baseball tickets, Alcatraz tickets, and a booking to go see Sweet Honey in the Rock. Don't you just love the Internet? Only one hazard remained to be overcome.

Airline food.
We read, now and then in the media, about how airlines are trying to improve their food. About how they hire executive chefs to develop new, more exciting menus; about how science has shown which tastes are enhanced or diminished in low air pressure, so that meals can be designed with more spice and umami. But having a picture of Neil Perry (Qantas), Matt Moran (Singapore Airlines) or Peter Gordon (Air NZ) on your in-flight mag doesn't get you past the reality that your food is being produced in a commercial catering factory by the thousands or tens of thousands, and will be reheated up to fifteen hours later. What would Gordon Ramsay (Singapore Airlines) do with that kitchen nightmare?

So I have a lot of sympathy for what airlines have to go through, although I don't think they do themselves any favours with their choices. To me, a good sandwich is better than a cruddy reheated tray dinner. Why don't they do simpler things well? And western cuisine is not super at being reheated, stews aside. Breakfast may be the worst. Soggy potatoes, rubbery eggs, and yet they persist with this. The best airline breakfast I ever had was on Air Malaysia. The sun was rising across the Gulf of Thailand and I was tucking into chicken rendang and rice. Spicy, salty, reheatable and a great way to start the day.

So what awaits us on this long haul from Auckland to San Francisco? Through cunning planning and a willingness to reschedule our flights to stage through Auckland Airport at 4.30am, a time at which all the travellers have the dead, soulless eyes normally reserved for zombies and politicians, we actually managed to get Premium Economy seats for just about 10-15% more than normal economy.

We got to sit upstairs in the jumbo, there was a glass of Piper-Heidsick clutched in my mitt practically before I had my bag stowed in the side storage, and the extra 10-15cm in each dimension makes a huge difference to comfort. I do encourage everyone to keep an eye out for this kind of deal. So it's not quite the cattle class feed we'll be seeing, nor the glory of first class, but somewhere in between.

And first off, we get an appetiser. Kaffir lime cured salmon with a wasabi mayonnaise & microherbs. Nice textured fish, good strong flavours, not a fantastic texture in the mayonnaise but overall a nice starter. On a real plate and with a real knife and fork.

Testing the patriotic food skills of the New Zealanders, I chose the lamb, grilled lamb loin with horopito (New Zealand pepper tree) flavoured salt, roast baby potatoes, carrot puree and and beans. This was a pretty typical airline meal I'm afraid. A good attempt to spice it up with the salt, but lean red meat needs a careful hand to be par cooked and reheated and this was a bit dry and chewy.

The Perigueuxse's choice of confit chicken thigh with kumara (sweet potato) puree, warm leek, green bean and watercress salad was a much wiser choice. The chicken was rich and moist and a few strands of thyme from the confit process still clung to the surface. Good food!

And a cheese plate. Not a piece of Cracker Barrel individually entombed in cellophane, this was nice pieces of some soft cheese and some mild blue with some dried apricots and fresh grapes. It was the quality of cheese you would find in a supermarket, which is to say not mind blowing but quite pleasant. Note on the left side of the field of vision are the crackers, individually wrapped for my convenience. I wonder if First Class gets unwrapped biscuits?

And to round out the post I'll do the meal on the way back, too. The kitchen was sticking with the spicy raw fish theme and gave us some cured and seared tuna with salad ratatouille and lobster dressing. Perfectly cooked tuna, moist and mildly flavoured, with a salad of some cooked red pepper, yellow pepper, grilled aubergine and courgette served at cool temperature. I didn't really get a lobster flavour from the dressing but it was nice, creamy and tangy.

I'd learnt my lesson from the red meat on the way out, so we both chose the fish - pan seared cod with lemon caper sauce, baby potatoes, spinach and caramelised shallots. Good texture on the fish, firm chunks and moist like cod should be, a sauce that could have used some more kick to it but was otherwise smooth, creamy, tasty and unobjectionable, and some perfectly pleasant vegetables.

And some olive bread this time round, with a cute little bottle of EVOO (peppery; not my favourite type of olive oil but probably a wise choice given the strength of the bread flavour).

Far and away nicer than economy class meals that I recall, and how much more expensive and difficult can this be to do? A suspicious mind might think that they are deliberately make the food bad so as to distract you from how uncomfortable the seats are. Gladly, your dear old Ecumer has a warm and trusting mind. And with a glass of Piper to keep him warm on the trip, he'll stay that way.

Next post in San Francisco!

Happy aerobatics,

Ecumer

And Now For Some News

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Sat, 28 May 2011 22:35:00 +0000

We here at On Golden Fond have a bunch of news. Part of the reason posts have been so scanty lately is that we have moved residence. It takes a fair bit of time, moving, painting, refinishing floors, having wardrobes built, and all that stuff. And after it all, we have some news. A new apartment, a new address, new views, new shops, new local restaurants. That's lots of news. Actually we moved a mere two blocks or so, but in this part of town that's a fair distance. And did I mention a new kitchen?

The bench is so big I feel like I could land an aeroplane on it. A small one, mind you.

So what does one cook for the first time in a new kitchen? I wish I could tie the food in to a theme of newness, but really they were just dishes that we liked the look of. And considering that the audience was the Perigueuxse's aunts, uncles and in-laws, as well as your dear old Ecumer's dear old mother, all good folk of a generation ahead of us, the focus in menu composition was on simple, clean, flavours. Less of the garlic and the chili, more of the herb and the vegetable, in line with their tastes and digestive constraints. We all have them, but they get a bit more prevalent as you get older. I, for instance, no longer chew on pickled chilis as a hobby. Just saying.

Shallow Fried Prawns with Crispy Skin and Cucumber Salad

This is based on a Donna Hay recipe but I cannot find the online recipe to attribute it (they often lag a year or two in updating online). The Donna Hay version used a mint leaf as the garnish and a malt vinegar mint sauce (a la your grandmother's roast lamb) for dipping. I thought some more modern Asian flavours might suit my audience better (they may be older, but they're not uninformed). The spring roll wrappers form a crispy shell around part of the prawns. Mmmmm, crunchy.

Prawns, raw, about 35g each and 3/serve
10cm x 10 cm spring roll wrappers, thawed, cut into quarters
Skewers
Vegetable oil for shallow frying (about 1 L)
1 bunch coriander, picked

Shell the prawns (you can leave the tails on), devein them and place on skewers. You may have to break the prawns a bit to get them straight. That's okay.
Place a coriander leaf on the back of each prawn, where the shoulders would be.
Put a quarter spring roll skin on top of the leaf with the flat edge to the front and the triangle to the back. If it doesn't want to stick, brush a little water along the edges; that will make the glutens in the wrapper stick to each other until they stick to the proteins of the prawns under cooking.
Heat some oil in a saute pan to about 160 C. Cook the prawns for about a minute and a half each side, drain on kitchen paper for a few seconds, then serve. You'll probably need to do this in batches, keep them warm in a warm (80 C) oven.
Garnish with quick-brined cucumber and serve with dipping sauce

Quick brined cucumber

1 Cucumber
Salt
Sugar
Peel the cucumber, cut in half down it's length and seed. Slice thinly into half-rounds.
Put in a colander and sprinkle with 1 tsp salt and 1/2 teaspoon sugar. Leave 20 minutes. Rinse.
The salt will extract cellular fluid from the cucumber, softening it. Both the sweetness and the saltiness will seep into the cucumber. Through the power of Osmosis!

Ecumer's Dipping Sauce

2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp light soy
1 tsp fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon chili oil
1 Tbsp finely chopped coriander leaves or stems or both

Combine all ingredients, stir, rest, serve.

Red Snapper with Tomato-Saffron Broth and Poached Vegetables

Well, first start wth a couple of impeccably fresh red snapper (Asian Snapper) fillets. Admire them, appreciate the sacrifice they made that you could dine tonight, then make sure all the pin bones are gone.

Buy the best pin bone tweezers you can afford. Their quality will be your reward.

2 * 500g fillets Asian Snapper

So take your magnificent fillet and cut it into cutlets of as even as possible size. about 8. Leave the other bits, you'll find somethimg useful for them. Let them contemplate their future while you prepare the rest of the meal. Set your oven to 80 C.

Broth

1 rack truss tomatoes

250 ml fish stock

pinch saffron

Roast a vineful of small tomatoes on low heat for an hour. Remove stems, roughly chop then drop into a pot with 250ml fish stock and a pinch of saffron fronds. Cook over low heat for 30 min then strain through a fine sieve or chinoise. Discard solids, keep sauce warm. It will have a slight sweetness from the roast tomatoes and a pleasant red-gold colour.

Poached Veg

250ml chicken or veggie stock

75ml dry vermouth (or dry white wine depending on your tastes)

1 leek, trimmed, washed, cut into 3 cm lengths

1 bunch baby carrots, greens trimmed, scraped or peeled, halved longwise

2 baby fennel, ends and rough leaves trimmed, cut into 6ths or 8ths depending on size.

Bring the poaching liquid to a simmer, let it go for 5 min to reduce the alcohol

One after the other poach the leeks (5 min), the carrots (8 minutes) and the fennel (12 minutes). Reserve vegetables to warm. Poaching times are approximate; test the items gently with a fork for doneness. They should be soft but slightly to the tooth.

Fish

Cook fish skin side down in a hot pan with a little vegetable oil to crisp for about 2 minutes. Turn and cook on the other side for about 2 minutes, then transfer to a tray and cook for about 8 min in the oven at 80 C

Presentation

Place the poached vegetables in a deep plate (for broth-sauce dishes I use pasta bowls), top with the fish, pour over the broth. We served with a fairly busy salsa verde (parsley, mint, basil, capers, anchovies, vinegar, olive oil, pepper, lemon juice, munched in a blender.) The acid in the sauce perked up the mild flavours in the main dish.

Voila :

We had sides of pommes puree and a green medley of broad beans (out of the inner pod), peas, zucchini strips and any leftover herbs with a little olive oil and lemon juice. It was good, but I didn't get photos.

Dessert was a reference from Cuisine Magazine abiut 14 years ago. Not sure why it caught the Perigueuxse's eye, but it did. And given that it's someone else's recipe, I'd love to reference it but Cuisine only goes back to edition 116 online and this is edition 74. (I am so old). If you want details bother Cuisine Magazine.

The point of the recipe is that it is a rustic pear and apple tart and that the shortcrust pastry contains lemon zest which gives it quite the striking presence. At the bottom of the tart is an almong paste which adds complex flavours; on top is a custard which adds smoothness and sweetness.

We had it with calvados infused cream and everyone was very happy indeed.

Did I mention we have a new view?

Happy new housing,

Ecumer

NZ Mash Up at Beer Deluxe : Night of the Beer Nerds

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Sun, 22 May 2011 04:27:00 +0000

It's Good Beer Week! Well, it was last week, anyway. A group of events organised around Melbourne to celebrate the quality and diversity of craft brewers, sponsored by (among others) The Crafty Pint, a top spot for news and info about craft brewing in Victoria. Here at On Golden Fond we pride ourselves on our diverse tastes - we like white wine and red wine - and our sense of adventure, so even though we're not beerologists we hied ourselves off to Beer Deluxe at Fed Square. It was a chilly Melbourne autumn night, but the thought of five New Zealand limited release beers with a specially composed five-course menu to match, for the very reasonable price of $50, warmed us to our toes.

Upstairs at Beer Deluxe is normally the dining room (a quieter place to go for a drink and snack if the downstairs is too rowdy, by the way), and that night the tables were run together into long ten-seaters for the hordes of beer nerds. Your dear old Ecumer did some home brewing when he was a poor uni student, but within minutes of sitting down he was quickly swamped in a sea of specific gravity, esoteric hop types, malting technique and ibus. Everyone we spoke to was a brewer, a home brewer, in the hospitality industry, or was at least one of the above and wanted to be more. A few people we spoke to had already been to several GBW events, and it was only Tuesday. There was a lot of passion in that room.

Beer-nerd passion. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

And there was a fair bit of beer going on in that room too. Let me check my notes.

Our first beer was Helles, a lager by the Tuatara Brewing Company. I thought it was pretty heavily hopped but it turned out to be mild compared to some of the later beers. It was very dry with a slight metallic aftertaste. Lighter flavours than most of what we tasted that night, a nice fresh not overly complicated beer.

This was paired with a hop & kaffir lime leaf infused chicken broth. It was a good clear mild-flavoured broth with balanced flavours from the infusing herbs and a hint of ginger too. A little bit too mild for the beer perhaps; on my palate, the aftertaste of the beer overpowered the flavours somewhat.

Next up was the Tall Poppy India Red Ale by 8 Wired. Definitely a food beer, Soren the brewer described it as "a beer that had everything" - complex, rich, toasty and sweet malt flavours, lots of different hop flavours (my beer vocabulary is not up to this task!) and a moderate bitterness on the after-palate.

The food match was chicken rubbed with a Yucatan spice mix (mild aromatics - I'm guessing there was coriander, cumin, pepper, and more) served with a chipotle mayonnaise and a chili-bourbon jelly. Great ideas in combining the different flavours through the different textural media, and a good set of flavours when combined on the tongue, but again a little mild compared to the assertiveness of the beer.

More beer? This is Armageddon IPA by the Epic Brewing Company, a beer with a story behind it, and Luke from Epic told us the story. Way back in 2008 there was a great hop shortage. The response of most craft brewers was to carefully ration their stocks and make them stretch as far as possible. The response of the good people at Epic was to pile all their hops into one mighty beer to go out with a bang. Thoughtfully they made it to a strength of 6.66% alcohol - the number of the yeast. As you would expect, lots of hop flavours in varieties I can't even describe, plenty of bitterness, a fairly strong body with a pleasant amber colour and richness in the mouth.

The matched dish was a curry-spiced pumpkin tart with pomegranate molasses. A very clever dish, a crispy short crust on the bottom of a cylinder of a light, almost fluffy cylinder of pumpkin flavoured with curry leaves, cardamom (I think) and more, with a sweet and tart syrup to cut the richness of the beer. Exciting flavours (sadly slightly overpowered by the beer again) and well executed.

Second-to-last was Patriot American Black Ale by The Croucher Brewing Company. It took a few more dings of the glass to get the crowd to settle down at that stage to hear it described as "a nice balanced ale, not too insane". Perhaps there is a tendency in the brewing community to overhop their product in a reaction against the bland, flavourless output of the mega-breweries? My notes remind me that this was a mildly bitter beer (only 40 ibus), quite dry and with some smokiness of flavour to go with the rich maltiness.

"Who has the most photogenic pork?" You don't hear that every day. Thank goodness.

Our final savoury dish was house-smoked pork fillet, stuffed with a date and blue cheese filling served with hop butter. The flavours stood up well to the beer, the pork was cooked just nicely, the blue cheese was a mild presence that balanced the sweetness of the date filling beautifully, and the stems of a couple of segments of softly cooked baby turnip were the only green things we saw all night. And that's okay, because this is beer food. The butter sauce with hop flowers was a little too bitter for my tastes, but it was easy to eat around, and by the look of the other people's plates at the end my tastes here may be a little mild.

And finally another beer with a story. Taieri George by The Emerson Brewing Company Ltd is named after Richard Emeson's late father George who was heavily involved in the redevelopment of the Taieri Gorge Railway as a historical tourist venture. Each bottle is vintage dated (at the brewery they have them going back to 2005) and released on George's birthday, March 6th. It takes the form of a Belgian strong ale, which ages and matures in the bottle (as do most bottle-finished beers). The Belgian yeast used gives hints of cloves and bananas, and the beer is also spiced with cinnamon, cloves and a secret ingredient that Richard won't reveal. We all thought it was cardamom. A very rich, balanced, spicy drink. "It's like Easter in a beer" said our tablemate Gabriel.

And a beer that went very well with our dessert, a rum baba with double cream. A classic soft sweet yeast dough, cooked and soaked in a sweet, spiced rum syrup with a set of flavours that balanced the beer beautifully.

There was one last surprise beer for the evening. The New Zealand brewers there that night had, with input from somewhere between 20 and 40 of their compatriot competitors depending on who was telling the story, created a "mash-up" - a beer designed to capture the essence and variety of the local craft brewing scene, made specially for Good Beer Week and available only at selected GBW events.

I neglected to take a photo but it was a mild golden colour, slightly hazy straight from the keg. It had a very complex nose, with aspects of pineapple, passionfruit and other spices from the hop mix. Medium bitterness and flavour in the mouth. A nice bonus at the end of a generous night of beer, food and knowledgeable people who are really, really excited about beer that isn't ice-cold and flavourless. Good Beer Week should be back next year. We'll keep an eye out for it.

Happy hopping,

Ecumer

Saturday Spanish Ham & Lamb

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 06:08:00 +0000

Mise me tender, mise me true

There's been a fair bit of Spanish-accented food in our house lately. I love it for its strong flavours, northern Mediterranean influenced by the Middle East. I love it because the ingredients and techniques are similar enough to the northern European ones that I'm familiar with to let me cook it with some confidence, while being different enough to be interesting and a bit challenging.

I hasten to say that I haven't been to Spain so I can't say whether what I'm doing is authentic or not (whatever authentic is), but as far as television and books can tell me I seem to be in the general area. Two book influences that have taken me beyond the gazpacho-tortilla-paella basics have been Jane Lawson's Cucina Nueva and Christine Manfield's Fire. Both full of interesting modern and polished interpretations of Spanish food (although Fire covers many other cuisines as well).

So on a Saturday night a while back our friends Scotty & Nic came round for a casual sit down, we cooked a simple and tasty roast of lamb with Spanish flavours*.

*Has anyone noticed how on this season of "My Kitchen Rules" dishes have been rigidly described as "Asian influenced", "Thai influenced" and so on? I suspect that one of the judges or production people is a bit of a food pedant (a badge I wear with pride) and gave the contestants a talking to about not calling a dish "Thai" unless it really truly is. Just a thought.

Our starter was a very simple one of lovely soft ham (Australian made in the style of prosciutto) on grilled bread with a bit of romesco sauce. I've given a recipe for that before; this was about the same except I used red wine vinegar, used the lower volume of olive oil, and only ground the nuts to a coarse consistency, leaving a paste rather than a smooth sauce. Nice toasty bread, tangy nutty sauce, and the rich salty ham caressing the tongue. Quick (as long as you have a bit of sauce leftover), simple and tasty.

Main was spiced roasted noisette of lamb. Noisette is a tender and moist cut, normally from the loin or saddle with a roll of skin & fat around, although nowadays you often see them with most or even all of the fat removed. They are tender flesh with little or no connective tissue so don't need to be stewed or braised and are suitable for grilling and quick roasting. I would serve them pink or even rare.

I got 2 noisettes about 550 - 600g each, which was enough to feed 6 or probably 8 people (no bones and little fat, and if you cook it gently you won't get much evaporation, so 150g/person raw weight should be enough for a serve). I cooked them in a medium hot frypan for about 5 minutes each side to brown the outside and to render out some of the fat. As you can see from the photo there was still a fair layer, so I probably needed to do it either longer or hotter.

After that I rolled them in a mixture of paprika, fresh ground cumin seed, white pepper, ground coriander seed, and ground cinnamon - probably 1-2 teaspoons of each but light in the pepper - then back into the pan for a minute or two each side to toast the spices. I didn't put them on at the start because 5 minutes in a medium hot pan would run a good risk of burning them.

Meanwhile I had the oven set to a cool 80 C. One of the good things about lean meat is that without connective tissue to convert to gelatine, there's no need to get the meat very hot. You can therefore cook it at a low heat. This is good as it drastically reduces the risk of overcooking (an error to which I am prone, even with diligent use of the probe thermometer), but has the downside that it's not hot enough to brown the outside or render fat. Hence the pan treatment above. Into the oven with the lamb, and kept it there until it hit an internal temperature of 130 F / 55 C (I always think of meat internal temperatures in Fahrenheit, because my first probe thermometer was American and scaled in F), which is quite pink, and which took about 45 minutes. Then set aside to keep warm under foil and rest.

While that was happening I deglazed the saute pan with a little dry white vermouth (didn't want to use sherry because a strong flavour here would detract from the spice mix), bubbled that down and then put in a couple of tablespoons of veal glaze to make a little sauce. I warmed this up at the same time the vegetables were cooking and added the resting juices from the lamb.

The accompaniment was a simple mixed veggie dish. Chopped up one chorizo sausage into quite small bits, about 5mm square, then cooked in a medium pan until browning nicely. Added a little oil (this was a pretty dry sausage and not much oil came out of it), then one medium red onion peeled and sliced. When the onion had slightly softened, added a drained 400g tin of chickpeas, some roasted red pepper cut into strips (from a jar is fine among friends, you only need a bit) and warmed through. Put in a few handfuls of washed rocket and stir until wilted very slightly, just a few seconds. Veggies on plate, lamb on plate, sauce over the lot.

Not a complicated dish at all but quite a pleasant one. The spice mix is very mild but I was struck by how clearly the flavour and scent permeated the lamb, adding a complex aromatic hint to every bite. And the low cooking is a pretty foolproof technique for delivering a properly moist and pink bit of lamb onto the plate, and that always makes me happy too.

Well, must go as we have just moved house and there's a lot to do. If I spend too long thumping away on the keyboard instead of unpacking the Perigueuxse may render me.

Happy Spanishing,

Ecumer

Another Year Once More : an Anniversary Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:17:00 +0000

Anniversary time again for the Perigeuexse and Ecumer. I have some friends who keep track of the anniversaries of their first date with their partner, or of their first kiss. While I vividly recall the first time the Perigeuexse and I did kiss, I do not remember the date.* The anniversary of reference for this posting is that of our wedding day. And a jolly day it was, full of all the usual things that happen on that kind of day - hairdos, photographs, late taxis, loose dogs, bubbly wine drunk through straws, food, family, friends, speeches and cakes (a croque-em-bouche for me, a mud cake for her). But this is not a reminiscence blog, it's a food blog!

*I do remember that it was winter. Does that help?

It was my turn to cook this year. Last year the Perigeuexse did a fantastic dinner for us, which I still fondly (but possibly unrealistically) hope to blog one day. But here we go for this year.

Oysters with Mignonette Dressing

I am very fond of Mignonette dressing, a pleasant change from the mayonnaisey 'seafood sauces' you find here and there (well, back in the restaurant I worked in briefly back in the '80s, at least. I still have food trauma from some of the stuff that went on there), and a bit more complex than the squeeze of lemon and pepper you get at the purist places. Mignonette is a broad church though. It can range from some red wine vinegar with some shallots and white pepper marinated/infused for a while, to a sauce of vinegar(s), wine, shallots, herbs and juices which are cooked together. I've opted for a version about 2/3 along the continuum from straight vinegar to gentle reduction; I want some kick left but not too much.

Ecumer's Mignonette

Makes enough for about a dozen oysters at a teaspoon per oyster.

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp dry white vermouth

1 tbsp finely chopped shallots

A grind or three of white pepper

2 tsp finely chopped chives or chervil

Bring the vinegar and the vermouth to the boil; add the pepper & shallots and simmer gently for five minutes.

Let cool; add the chives. Serve with raw oysters*; spoon the sauce over. I found an oversized shot-glass in the cupboard which did nicely as a vessel.

*The Perigeuexse doesn't actually like raw oysters, so for her I steam them for about 3 minutes in a steamer basket over a wok over medium hot steam. This removes the slimy ickiness that she dislikes while leaving most of the flavour and texture of the oyster intact. I've found this approach works with a lot of people who don't like oysters. Is it as good as an oyster natural? No, but if it gets people to enjoy something they otherwise wouldn't, I'll make the compromise.

My oysters were raw with an overlay of acid, aromatic and herby from the dressing. The Perigeuexse's were the same except for being lightly steamed. Briny, fishy, tart, acid. Yum!

Figs with Ham and Gorgonzola

It being towards the end of summer, figs are definitely on the mind of the seasonal eater. And so many things to do with them! Desserts, savouries, loaves, pastries ... I went for a simple combination at the savoury end.

Nice ripe figs, 1 per person as an appetiser, 2-3 per person as an entree
1 good slice of young, soft prosciutto per fig, with a few left over just in case something goes wrong*
About 5g of Gorgonzola dolce de latte per fig**.

It's like a restless red sea ... of ham ...

*You should eat the leftovers if nothing goes wrong. On toast for breakfast the next morning with a little mustard is spectacular.

** You can use a stronger blue cheese if you like.

Cut a cross-shaped incision at the top of each fig, going about halfway down
Open the incision with a squeeze to the sides and place the cheese inside

Wrap a slice of ham around the bottom of each fig

Place the figs as closely as possible in a small baking dish and cook in a 170 C oven for about 10 minutes

Serve the figs with a little splash of good quality balsamic vinegar (the acid will help to balance out the sweetness). Maybe the tiniest drizzle of a fruity olive oil too.

And what you end up with is a mouthful of sweet rich fig, sweet-and-salty cheese, just-plain-salty ham, and a bit of acid (with a little sweetness) from the balsamic. A dish of complex and interconnected flavours.

Okay, it looks a bit like a triffid. Got a problem with that?

Shell-cooked prawns with Salsa Verde and Salad

I'm pretty sure I've said before that cooking prawns in the shell is one of my favourite ways. You get a great charred aspect to the taste, which intensifies the crustacean flavour in a unique way, that tinges through the whole prawn.

The problem is that you end up with a prawn that is still in its shell, and that makes the eating not as easy as it could be. You could cook it in the shell, then take it out of the shell before serving, but then it will get a bit cool before your diners get to eat it, plus of course that leaves you trying to peel red-hot prawns straight off the heat with your poor little fingers.

Ah, the eternal tension between easy and tasty. I have no doubt that somewhere is an earnestly keen molecular gastronomy proponent who will work out a way to chemically treat the shell (possibly involving a precise 0.001 seconds in liquid nitrogen) so that after cooking you can crack it gently against your plate like an egg and the shell will fall cleanly off. But I am neither that earnest nor that keen. So my compromise is simple, and works thusly.

- use large prawns rather than small
- take off the heads and legs, leaving the connective bit on the lower side of the tail in place
- using a knife or even kitchen shears, cut from the top of the shell into the middle, along the length of the top of the tail
- remove the digestive tract
- loosen the shell from around the tail, leaving it in place but held only by the little connective bit on the underside

Hey presto, semi-peeled prawns that will char up nicely with a true flavour and be dead easy for your diners to peel. Why large prawns? It's a bit easier to do the semi-peeling with large than small, as sometimes bits of shell fall off altogether with small ones. Plus you have a lesser number of peels to do if you're only serving two or three per person; the time to peel a prawn doesn't seem to be particularly related to it's size, possibly because I don't feel the need to be as delicate with a large one.

I didn't flavour or marinate the prawns at all, just cooked in a spanking hot pan in a touch of olive oil for about three minutes, tossing occasionally. We had them on top of a few dobs of salsa verde

- about half a bunch of flat-leaf parsley
- half a shallot (chopped roughly)
- a couple of tablespoons of olive oil
- about half a lemon's worth of lemon juice
- two teaspoons of rinsed salted capers
- salt & pepper
- half a teaspoon of Dijon mustard

all pureed in the stab blender's pureeing attachment. On the side was a little salad of picked watercress leaves (depending on where you buy it the stalks may be very large and coarse and the leaves need to be picked off), some finely sliced shallot (soaked in water to lessen the sharp onionyness of it all) and a simple dressing of lemon juice and olive oil (so as to not clash with the flavours in the salsa verde).

Our last savoury course was a pithivier filled with quail breast (two per pie) and duxelles of Swiss Brown and reconstituted dried porcini mushrooms, served on a sauce of veal glaze, Madeira wine and the soaking water of the porcinis (no flavour left behind). The sauce was very nice, that nice gummy mouth feel of a good gelatinous sauce with restrained sweetness from the wine and earthiness from the 'shrooms; the pastry puffed up beautifully and was lustrous; but the filling sank away to the bottom leaving a huge air gap at the top, and the quail was a bit over cooked.

Next time a more substantial filling, maybe a mousseline of the quail leg meat. That should puff up a little and keep the filling high, and should also insulate the quail breasts from being overcooked. I'll let you know how it goes, and in the meantime will not bother you with a recipe that I know doesn't do what I want.

Oh deceptive lure of golden-brown pastry. And next time, something green on the plate.

Amaretti Peaches and Custard

And finally dessert. Simple and seasonal (as befits the fifth dish on a Sunday night), I

- bought some lovely ripe pears from the Market

- halved and pitted them

- filled the pit-hole (never let technical terms slow you down) with some crumbled amaretti drizzled with just a little peach liqueur

- sprinkled the exposed top of the peach with a little brown sugar

- browned the lot under the grill. Mmmmm, caramelisation

- served on a peach-liqueur flavoured light custard*

*should have been a zabaglione but I kind of ran out of patience.

So another year, another dinner, and many more of both to look forward to.

Cheers,

Ecumer

Melbourne Food & Wine Festival 2011 : Old vs New at The Point

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:28:00 +0000

The Point Albert Park
Aquatic Drive
Albert Park Lake
http://www.thepointalbertpark.com.au/

"It's not a contest", said Scott Pickett, to the crowd of diners at the Old School vs New School dinner. Scott is executive chef at The Point and has worked at restaurant Paul Bocuse Melbourne*, Ondine* and The Square in London. He is Old School. Ryan Flaherty has worked at Arzak, The Fat Duck and El Bulli and is now working a series of pop-ups in Melbourne. He is New School.

The evening, part of the 2011 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, is made up of a series of dishes by each chef using the same set of core ingredients - eggs, whiting, beef, apples. The idea is of course to compare and contrast the kinds of food you can create under each style. We'll also be comparing old world and new world wines, and traditional (Riedel) vs modern (Plumm) wine-glass styles. Neat ideas (which I won't go into or else this post will take me a month to write)

So not a contest, no. We got our scoring pens ready.

*it makes me feel so old that I remember those, even ate at one of them, even though it was only the Nineties.

Two glasses of bubbles - that can't be bad.

We had a great group at table (none of whom we had met before). D, an educator of our youths, her husband N, who sources electronics for import. T, a pure mathematician in academia, and his wife T who is a GP studying graduate qualifications in public health. And of course your dear old Ecumer, a maven of risk-weighted capital ratios, and the Perigeuexse of system support notoriety.

We chatted, we shared our thoughts about what was good on TV, what were the exciting places to eat, about poutine, (which sounds a bit dodgy to me, but T&T had spent time in Canada in winter and swear that the carb/fat/protein bomb is exactly what you need to keep you going in those icy cold conditions). We talked about the wine, about the food, about our experiences, about ukuleles and about our lives, and about why Americans put maple syrup on sausages for breakfast ("The sweet makes the savoury taste so much more savoury", says T. I am unconvinced.). There's really something to be said for spending an evening with some strangers with whom you already know you have one important thing in common - a willingness to shell out $155 for a challenging and interesting meal. We each rated each dish out of 10.

And quite an evening it was. Scheduled to go from 5.30 to 10.30 at night, people arrived between 5.30 and 6.00, mostly. Wine service started about 6.00, with a glass each of Pommery NV and 2006 Yarrabank Cuvee. Tasting the two next to each other is not a fair comparison; the Pommery is balanced, smooth and yeasty, while the Yarrabank was assertively acidic, lightly beaded and verged on unbalanced in comparison. Of course the wines were designed to be drunk with particular dishes which is why the comparison is unfair. The good thing was that the waitstaff kept topping up our glasses until the first dish arrived. An unscrupulous person may have taken advantage of this kind hospitality by quickly drinking the Pommery and ignoring the Yarrabank, thence gettingtop-ups on the good stuff. I could not comment.

The first dish on the menu (served at 6.30) was neither Old or New, it was a collaboration between the two chefs. Old school provided a slow confit suckling pig trotter, shredded and mixed with tarragon to form a smooth, rich, almost milky, rilletty filling to a crust of filo pastry. New school provided a temperature-stable onion gel as an accompaniment, which I found pretty indistinguishable from a soubise sauce (Ryan agreed when I put that to him).

Suckling pig croustade, white onion gel. Score 42/60. I think a few people were rating 6s so they would have room to go up or down on later dishes. I thought it was delicious and gave it an 8.

A table full of glasses. Nothing could possibly go wrong here.

Old School #1 (7.00pm) : Poached egg, white polenta and black truffle. The egg was tender with a runny yolk spreading thick gooey joy around the plate, the polenta was creamy, fine grained and more like a sauce than a starch dish, and the truffles (the very last of this year's French harvest) drove us all mad with joy. Let's bear this in mind for the next truffle dinner (Mr Nissen did something very similar last year).

Score 53/60, highest of the night. I gave it 8/10. What was I thinking? I was the only one who didn't give it a 9.

New School #1 (7.20 pm) : 63c egg, blackened corn and jamon. The egg was pretty impressive, an excitingly light, soft and consistent white, however the heat treatment had taken the yolk past runny to merely rich and delicious ("We love a runny yolk," said D). The jamon jam was sweet, texture and beautifully hammy, but the baby corn was a little chewy and bland and the blackened corn (clearly visible in the photo) really just tasted like ash.

Score 41/60. No-one liked the ash.

Old School #2 (8.30 pm): Grilled whiting, golden raisins, pinenuts and beurre noisette. Moist plump fish, rich brown butter sauce, sweet raisins, crispy nuts. The fish was nicely cooked (although we all would have liked some crispy skin - it was actually a trifle chewy), the sauce was rich, the raisins and nuts added more richness.

Score 42.5/60. Maybe a little rich.

New School #2 (9.15 pm) : Smoked whiting, fennel and bacon with lemon air. Delicately cooked (sous vided?) whiting cooked with smoke powder (no, I don't know what that is) served on a bed of candied fennel. The fennel's texture was light and creamy but the cooking process had taken away most of the aniseedy kick and left sweetness. The bacon was also caramelised and scattered artistically around the plate, providing tiny salty protein bombs in the occasional mouthful. The lemon air was quite exciting, a stable foam very heavy on lemon which smoothed that flavour across the whole dish.

46.5/50. I think the sharper flavours edged it past Old School Whiting.

Next was beef (9.50pm), which I think was Cape Grim grass fed beef, and was definitely fillet. Old school was seared and roasted in a slow oven. New school was cooked sous-vide (I think I heard 49 C for 4 hours which is terrifyingly low and short) and them given a little searing. Both were served with a dark mushroom puree, a fairly mild flavoured but pleasant red wine sauce, and a plate of luscious pommes puree, no doubt 50% butter by weight. Salads? I think there was a salad.

The Old School beef was a classic. Seared flavour on the outside, meltingly tender texture inside. The New School lacked the strong char flavour on the outside and on the inside was on the verge of the jelly-like texture of meat that is raw rather than rare.

Old School Beef : 50/60. Rockin'!

New school Beef : 48/60. Still pretty darn good.

A pleasant but mild red wine sauce in a sexy copper pot.

Next out was Old School #4 : Apple tart and hokey pokey ice cream (10.20pm). A thin wafer of rough-puff pastry, slices of caramelised apple on top, a couple of elegant swirls of salty butterscotch sauce and a nice quenelle of vanilla ice cream with crispy caramel/praline crunchy sweet treats. Dense strong flavours in the tart balanced by the ice cream. Classic Old School.

49.5/60. Classic rich dense flavours, complimented beautifully by the 2007 Graves Sauternes.

Apple, cinnamon, yoghurt and honeycomb (10.40pm). Green apples were peeled, cored and sous-vided to concentrate their flavours while retaining their crispy textures. The yoghurt was a cinnamon-infused foam over the top of the apples, with honeycomb mixed into the foam for texture and point concentrations of sweetness. And an edible flower apparently taking the form of an Eye of Seeing set into the foam. Also a very good dish; I loved the tartness and firmness of the apples and while the foam was a bit light for texture at least you could tell it was there.

49/60 Too close to call on the desserts. I actually rated New School dessert higher because I like the fresh acidic fruity flavours; Old School was a bit too much about the caramel.

So overall : Old school 2, New School 1, undecided 1. I was impressed with the quality of the Old School dishes; I was impressed that the New School dishes were restrained and about showcasing the food rather than the technique. I'll keep my eyes open for Ryan's gigs around town.

Of course just as we were finishing up the scoring the two chefs emerged from the kitchen to see how we were going. We gushed a bit (I blame the Sauternes), asked a few technical questions (Tarragon you say?). They grabbed our score sheets off the table and had a good laugh with (or possibly at) each other about the scores. It all ended happily and we taxied off home at about 11.20. I may not have been at my very best at work the next day.

So why bother blogging about a one-off event that's already past? After all, you can't use it as a guide to go there again. On the other hand, these dishes and styles give people things to think about with regards to what they may want to cook, eat, or look for to dine on. It may make you think about other events at other festivals that you might seek out and enjoy. Or it might just be fun to read and think about.

Happy Festivals,

Ecumer

Bacon Challenge #4 - Omelette

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 10:38:00 +0000

"The key to a good omelette", says Henry Crabbe, "is the heat of the pan."* I would not argue with one of the great gastronomic detectives, but I would add that the key to a great omelette is great ingredients. Among which may be Moulard's bacon.

*I'm paraphrasing here as sadly there is no online list of quotes for Pie in the Sky. Volunteers?

Now let me be clear - this is the Perigeuexse's omelette recipe and technique. I've cooked omelettes maybe twice in my whole life, and she is much, much better than I am.

Ingredients (Serves 1)

Some bacon, cut into batons, say 2mm square by 20mm long
2 eggs
1 tbsp milk
Some chives, finely chopped. If you don't have chives, any fresh fines herbes will be okay; parsley, tarragon, chervil, oregano, but be sure the herb doesn't clash with the cheese or the bacon.
Some cheese, finely grated. Parmesan, good cheddar, gruyere. They're all good, this one used the Parmesan.

1. The Pan.

The Perigeuexse has a special pan just for omelettes. She used to have a special pan for omelettes that I would use to fry things in, but I cooked the #$%^ out of the bottom of the pan. So I bought her a new one and she hides it so I can't mess this one up. It's a fairly thick aluminium base with a modern sexy non-stick coating of the type that helps space shuttles re-enter the atmosphere. Most of the time. About 9" across which is perfect for one omelette. I think you want a thick-based pan (copper or stainless steel are slightly technically better at conducting heat than aluminium, but also more expensive), as omelettes are a dish cooked quickly, mostly from the retained heat in the pan. And non-stick doesn't hurt.

2. The Bacon.

Saute the bacon in the medium hot pan until browning and crisping but not dried out. Revel in the rich aromatic flavours coming from the pan (see photo above). Remove from the pan, drain on paper towels if you want to remove some fat. But remember - Fat is Flavour!

3. The eggs.

Put the eggs in a small bowl with a tablespoon of milk; beat with a fork until well mixed. Don't overbeat. The water is to reduce the thickness of the eggs to make a slightly thinner mixture. Some people use milk or even cream for the same purpose. Why a fork? Depends on what type of omelette you want. Light and fluffy - use a whisk and get lots of air and bubbles in. Medium texture and a bit firmer - use a fork and don't beat too hard, just until it's mixed.

4. Start the omelette.

Heat your pan over medium high heat for a couple of minutes. If you're using a non-stick pan you don't have to add butter, but if you want an extra richness do so now and wait for it to start bubbling. Whack in your beaten eggs, spread them about the pan and let them cook. A minute or so.

5. The herbiage.

At this stage, sprinkle your fresh herbs, whatever they may be, over the surface of the omelette.

6. A noble spirit embacons the smallest man.

Sprinkle your cooked bacon over half the surface of the omelette.

7. Cheese, it's good.

Sprinkle your finely grated cheese over the same half of the omelette.

8. Wrap it up.

When you're confident that the bottom is done (peek underneath if uncertain) and the interior is still soft, flip half the omelette over the other half.

Slide onto a suitable plate, season (some pepper, maybe some salt if the bacon was not salty), and eat with a slice of bread or toast and butter.

The Perigeuexse let me taste a bit and it was superb. Firm on the outside, moist on the inside, and firm-textured spicy aromatic bits of bacon leavened by fresh herbs and savoury cheese.

This was significantly better in showcasing the bacon than my over-complex, under-balanced last couple of bacon dishes. I'm still happy with my scallops and bacon dish, but the omelette was better than the croquettes or the buenelos. So let that be a lesson for us all.

Happy baconing,

Ecumer

Serendipitous Duck : The Deanery

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 11:53:00 +0000

The Deanery has not particularly been on our radar for a while, which is strange because it's one of the closest restaurants to our apartment. Largely I think because it's such a successful bar, and a successful bar means lots of noise, and that, for your dear old Ecumer, does not mean a happy quiet enjoyment of food and company.

Since the building changed hands (not sure if the bar/restaurant did - don't think so) they have taken to having hand-written chalkboards out front advertising beer specials. Not the classiest of looks for a restaurant that's trying to project a good food vibe (although it's normally a pretty good beer being spruiked). And I have looked at their menu online from time to time and my attention not been especially grabbed.

But maybe I wasn't looking closely enough, because this week on a quiet Tuesday night we went in, expecting to be able to get a decent steak if nothing else, and were quite surprised by what we found.

Nothing has changed about the decor. Still little booths at the front and tables beside the bar leading up to the dining room upstairs at the back (next to the glass-sided wine storage room, with cages available for public rental, into which one can look into longingly if you're on one of the tables up against that wall). Still decorated in Designer Industrial Stark, rendered concrete walls, exposed concrete ceilings with pipes zipping about, and low-wattage yellow incandescents hanging unshaded on cords from the ceiling. If the photos look a bit yellow in this post, you know why. There's only so much colour-correction you can do while still leaving the food to look like itself. And all the exposed concrete makes it noisy, the only absorbent surface being the industrial strength carpet (which is not very acoustically absorbent, actually). So if you like your tetes-a-tete to be quiet, I suggest dining early in the week or on Saturday (when the suits who populate the bar on a Thursday and Friday are elsewhere).

Just the Perigeuexse and me the other night, and it being a weeknight we weren't out to have a dining extravaganza and we didn't give the menu all that thorough a workout. But what we saw looked interesting. The menu has a nice tight charcuterie section (chicken liver parfait, rabbit rillettes, bresaola), some eclectic modern appetisers (watermelon with dried fish, basil and chili; beef olive and almond pastries; sauteed mushrooms and tallegio on brioche), and then some interesting looking mains such as pork belly with cabbage, apple & candied walnuts; squid ink ravioli with tomato & seaweed; and chargrilled lamb shoulder with cracked wheat, fetta & mint. We'd like to try a lot of those.

Two little quibbles with the menu - the dishes are divided into categories labelled "Small" and "Bigger", which translates to entrees and main. But in these days where lots of menus have medium sized dishes meant to be shared, labelling a main course as "Bigger" is confusing to no good purpose. Second, it didn't look awfully summery - pork belly and cabbage, sauteed mushrooms and cheese on toast, duck pie with mushrooms, baked gnocchi with cheese. Just because it's air conditioned inside doesn't mean we want to eat wintry dishes. But those are little quibbles.

So what did we eat?

Steamed pork buns 'inspired by Momofuku' ($12). I haven't had the originals but there's a lot of information out there on the web, and these appear to be along the same lines. A steamed yeast bun wrapped around a slice of crispy-topped succulent pork belly, spring onions, and a sauce that tasted like hoisin spiked with black vinegar and a little chili (leaving out the pickled cucumber of the David Chang original version). We loved them. Soft, giving pastry, to-the-tooth meat, and a sharp tangy sauce - northern Chinese street food updated to wake up your jaded Melbournian palate.

Duck pie, preserved mushrooms ($27.5). Extremely buttery puff pastry around a filling of casseroled thigh meat and mushrooms, and in the middle a confit duck drumstick (duckstick? No, probably not) poking out at a jaunty angle. Underneath were some porcini (I think) which had been preserved in a mix of vinegar and olive oil, with a creamy sauce. The pastry was rich and crisp, the duck was tasty and rich, and I loved how I could take little bits of confit meat off the drumstick and mix them in with the other bits to my liking - the flavours were distinct on the plate. The pickled mushrooms hit a slightly dissonant note among all the richness, and the creamy sauce added more richness which may have been better served something a bit thinner like a jus, and this was one of the dishes I thought more summery than wintry. But I loved it, I would eat it again, and I'm thinking if I have any suitably-sized pie dishes so I can have a try at it myself. In winter. Well, maybe autumn.

Slow braised goat, almond and currant cous cous, yoghurt ($26). An off-the-bone tender serve of goat cooked in a gentle spice mix of ... well, I think there was cinnamon, cumin (or maybe turmeric), garlic, coriander seed and lots of other things. But this is not a forensic cooking reconstruction blog, this is a cookin' and eatin' and enjoyin' blog. Tender, moist, delicately fragrant, restrained when it could have been loud and brassy. We appreciated the subtlety. One of us may have picked up the bones and sucked the gooey liquid love off them when the waitress was looking elsewhere.

So a relatively quick recon to The Deanery this time around, and one where we were very happy with what we ate. Good quality, good modern concepts and styles, well executed and reasonably priced for the quality. The service was good too, attentive, engaging, happy to talk about the food and clearly excited by it. We're inclined to go back and try some more. On a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, I reckon.

Happy summer menus,

Ecumer

Additional : March 2011.

A quick update back to the Deanery for another dinner on a quiet Saturday evening, just the Perigueuxse and me.

Beef, olive and almond pastries ($11.50). Braised beef of delectable melting texture with hints of almond and a mild North African spicing on a bed or romesco sauce and a nice little acid hit from a slice of lemon. Delicious flavours but on the one I had I thought the pastry, while admirably short, was a trifle thick and slightly doughy on the inside. It was a very nice dish but with a crisper pastry, mayby filo or brik, it would have been exciting.

Chargrilled Lamb shoulder, cracked wheat, peas, fetta, mint ($25.50). Chargrilled is an understatement; the lamb, when we asked, had been cooked overnight in the combi-oven (a groovy piece of fairly modern tech that combines a convection oven and a steam oven so you can cook your food while keeping complete control overthe moistness of what is being cooked) before being chargrilled and sliced. And it was a superb bit of lamb; moist, gelatinous, nice seared flavour on the outside and again meltingly tender. They are fantastic at slow-cooked meat here.

The other components on the dish worked well too. Sweetness from the peas, that interesting texture of give and crispness from the cracked wheat, and the feta was soft, sharp and creamy.

Warialda Belted Galloway grass fed skirt ($26.00). It's a brave restaurant that serves skirt steak, a lean, muscly cut of beef that is normally relegated to use in fajitas. It's a thin cut, and you have to cook it just right for it not to be either raw or overdone, and then slice it thinly against the grain of the muscle so that it is tender to the mouth. If you get it right, you get a mighty beef flavour with soft morsels of contrasting char and rare (at about half the price of fillet); if not, you get leather. The Deanery cares enough to source it's beef from a specialist producer, and serves it up just right. With a relish of onion and spices with a little sweet and a little acid in it (or you can get pepper sauce or horseradish ifyou like), a little bowl of romesco sauce for additional sharp and complex flavours, and some good hearty crispy chips.

Good food, engaged staff who know all about the food and are excited to talk about it with you, excellent prices for this quality of food in the CBD. They have a battery of modern hardware in the kitchen and use the the sous-vide bath, the combi-oven and the vacuum extractor to turn out well-worked dishes ofhigh quality without any fuss or fancy about it being all molecular. We like it.

Disclosure : As well as being a bar and restaurant, the Deanery also runs commercial wine storage in a rather romantically gloomy room at the very back. Since the first visit at the top of this page, I have started storing my wine there, so a commercial relationship does exist between me and the Deanery. However I pay them, so I'm pretty sure my judgement is not compromised. But I thought you should know.

Cheers,

Ecumer

Bacon Challenge #2 and #3 : Deep Fried Debacle

noreply@blogger.com (ecumer) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:49:00 +0000

I trust you loyal readers all remember the Bacon Challenge and my first response to it. Let me just remind you how luscious Moulard's bacon looked ...

.... and then I can tell you what I did with it. Debacle is perhaps an overstatement - we food bloggers can be prone to hyperbole - but this is one of those cooking episodes where I feel I learnt more than I achieved. Don't worry, there's a happy ending, but it will be in another post.

I had two more things I wanted to do with Moulard's bacon. One was croquettas, the classic tapas item of a thick bechamel sauce mixed with a flavouring ingredient (ham or bacon or chicken or capsicum or whatever). The bechamel is left to cool in a tray, then rolled into little cylinders, dipped in flour, beaten egg and finally breadcrumbs, then deep fried. The idea is you get a crispy golden outside and a soft luscious gooey inside.

So I did all those things, cutting the bacon into small batons (about 2mm x 2mm x 10mm, maybe a bit smaller) and mixing them in with the bechamel before it set. And everything was okay up to that point. I won't give you a recipe just now, because I wasn't happy with my finished product and I want to get it right _before_ I actually share it.

My problems were twofold, one of conception which was then exacerbated by one of execution.

First, execution. I had a 2 quart (2.5L) pot with about a litre of vegetable oil in it - stacks of oil for the half-dozen croquettas I had to cook. I had put it on the stove, put my candy/frying thermometer in it towards the bottom, and adjusted the heat until it was a steady 170 C or so. 170 - 180 C is the magic temperature for frying just about everything.

Then when I put the croquettas into the oil, it bubbled up furiously and the temperature on the thermometer leapt up to about 210 C. Clearly that was too hot so I took it off the heat and let it come down, but my nice smooth heating profile was completely shot. The croquettas were already a darkish rather than golden brown on the outside, and I took them out of the pot earlier then I should have just to stop them getting all burnt.

So what caused this? The only thing that comes to mind is that the oil was actually heating irregularly in the pot, with hot spots and cool spots, and that my thermometer was in a cool spot. Then when the croquettas dropped in, it stirred up the oil and raised the temperature in the cool spots up to the average.

Now I'm no thermodynamicist, but I can see a couple of solutions to this issue, assuming I have diagnosed it semi-accurately. One would be to give the oil a stir from time to time, with a heat-proof and extremely dry stirrer, to keep it circulating. The other would be to use my actual deep fryer, which has a thermostat on it and will do the job properly. But I didn't that night, as I was just doing a handful of croquettas and didn't want to use up litres and litres of oil.

And so I did get my croquettas, a little browner than I had planned but excellently crispy on the outside, and smooth and rich on the inside. Which brings us to the second problem of conception. The flavour of the bacon was quite covered up by the rich goopiness of the bechamel. If you are going to get flavour into a medium as naturally dense as bechamel you need to use a lot of flavour, and the subtle spiciness and scent of the amount of bacon I had put in was ... not completely lost, but rather short of what it should have been. And conception exacerbated by execution? The croquettas were not burnt, but they were definitely tasting a bit singed. Which again did not help the flavours of the bacon get out there.

Buenelos are another classic tapas dish, basically little balls of choux pastry which are deep fried. They can be flavoured with some grated cheese (use a good strong-flavoured one like manchego or parmesan), some finely chopped bacon or ham, or just with some herbs. Done properly they are golden brown and crispy on the outside, and mildly doughy and chewy through the middle without being heavy middle. Done the way I did them ...

Well, in short I repeated the two errors from my batch of croquettas. I didn't heed the oil temperature issue, and the temperature leapt up again as before, making the buenelos overly brown and creating tiny little bubbles in the skin that you can see in the photo. Secondly I used the spice mix as given in the recipe I had for ham buenelos (cumin, paprika), not stopping to think that the bacon was already spiced and that the extra spices may clash. The distinctive flavour of Moulard's bacon did not shine through.

So the result, again, was not what I was hoping for. The results were edible, even pleasant - I wouldn't have sent either of the dishes back as spoiled if served them in a restaurant. But they were cooked a little more than they should have been, and they didn't serve my design of showcasing the qualities of the bacon. I will do both recipes again at some stage, but I will adjust the seasonings to suit the star ingredient and be extra careful with the temperature.

So that just leaves the happy ending that I warned you about at the start of the post. But that's another story.

Happy baconing,

Ecumer