Red Braised Pigeon
4 baby pigeons, wing tips removed

Master stock
4 ½ litres water
375ml Chinese light soy sauce
375ml shaoxing (Chinese cooking wine)
250g yellow rock sugar
1 large knob ginger root, sliced
8 garlic cloves, roughly sliced
3 star anise
3 pieces cassia bark
½ bunch green shallot tops, rinsed 

In a large pot, bring all the master stock ingredients to the boil. Reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes and check the seasoning. 
Bring a large pot of water to the boil and blanch the pigeons in boiling water for 1 minute then refresh in ice water. Scrub off mucus membrane. 
Return the master stock to the boil, remove the pot from the heat and add the pigeons.  Place a small lid over them to ensure they are well submerged. Leave the pigeons to steep for 18 minutes, then remove from the stock and place on a wire rack to cool and dry out.

Prawn Stuffed eggplant
1 large eggplant
Sea salt

Prawn stuffing
3 green king prawns, peeled and minced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 small knob ginger, finely chopped
2 shallots, cut into fine rounds
½ teaspoon caster sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon shaoxing (Chinese cooking wine)
½ teaspoon sesame oil
1 egg white, beaten to a soft peak

Preheat a deep fryer to 180C.
Cut the eggplant into 8 x 1 ½ cm thick slices. Sprinkle the eggplant slices liberally with salt and leave for ½ hour. Pat the eggplant slices dry with paper towel.
Combine all the prawn stuffing ingredients together except the egg white and mix thoroughly. Fold the egg white through gently.
Place prawn stuffing between two slices of eggplant and repeat.
Deep fry the prawn stuffed eggplant until golden on both sides in a wok of hot oil 180 degrees. Drain well on paper towel.

Black Vinegar Sauce
60ml black vinegar
30ml oyster sauce
30ml Chinese light soy sauce
3 tablespoons sugar
500ml chicken stock

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to a simmer and reduce until the flavor intensifies and reduces by half.

Pigeon garnish
15g peeled ginger, 1mm dice
3 cloves garlic, 1mm dice
15g long red chilli, de-seeded and 1mm dice
10g shallot, thinly sliced in rounds
5g coriander leaf, thinly sliced

Simply combine all ingredients gently together in a bowl.

To Assemble
4 x 500g red braised baby pigeons, (squab)
4 portions prawn stuffed eggplant
500ml black vinegar sauce
40g garnish
4 cups of vegetable oil 

Preheat a wok with 4 cups of oil to 180C. 
In a large shallow saucepan or deep fry pan, bring the black vinegar sauce to the boil. Add the eggplant and braise for 15 minutes.
Pat the pigeons as dry as possible with paper towel and fry them for 3 minutes in the deep fryer.  Remove and place in a paper towel lined bowl to dry. 
Cut each piece of eggplant in half and place two pieces on each of four plates.
Remove the breast (keeping wing bone intact) and leg from each pigeon.
Place the leg next to the eggplant, then slice the breast into 3 and place on top.
Strain the black vinegar sauce and pour a little over each dish.
Finish by scattering the diced garnish.

Chinese Roast Pigeon with Prawn Stuffed Eggplant

The current wine list features approximately 900+ wines with an extensive listing from Australian and International wine regions.

Passion for wine and food is a must, along with a comprehensive knowledge of local and imported wines.  Candidates must also show dedication to providing our guests with exceptional wine service. 

We are looking for Staff who want to be part of a successful team. If you feel that your experience would be right for this position please apply.  

All candidates must be available Tuesday to Saturday for dinner service and be available to work full time hours.
 
Applicants should have relevant experience within the wine industry, preferably in a restaurant of a similar calibre.  

To be eligible for this position you must have an appropriate Australian or New Zealand work visa. 

Please email your application to emma@rockpool.com 

Only successful applicants will be contacted.

We had some great news last night. Time Out magazine voted Rockpool the best restaurant in the city. It is a huge congratulations to Phil and Penny and their respective teams. What a fantastic thrill for the guys.  Now we just have to keep the good work up.

 Here is the article below.

Restaurant makes history winning Wine Spectator Grand Award

15 July 2010:  Leading wine and lifestyle magazine, New York based Wine Spectator has announced Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney as the first ever recipient in the Southern Hemisphere to receive a Grand Award in the recently published 2010 Restaurant Wine List Awards, which honour the word’s best wine lists. 

Held by only 75 restaurants worldwide as of 2010, the Grand Award is given to restaurants that show an uncompromising, passionate devotion to the quality of their wine program.  These restaurants all have passed rigorous evaluations, demonstrating that their wine lists, service, cuisine and ambience are worthy of the program’s highest honours.  

Since its inception just over one year ago, Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney’s has been the recipient of many prestigious wine and restaurant awards.  The wine list features over 3,600 different wines, ranging on vintages as far back as 1795.  Although many of the legendary wines of the 20^th Century are represented on the wine list, over 400 wines priced below $100 are also featured. 

Directors of Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney, David Doyle, Neil Perry, and Trish Richards were thrilled with this award win and commended Sophie Otton and her team for their outstanding expertise, service and dedication to successfully presenting and managing the extensive list. 

“To be one of 75 restaurants in the world and the only one in Australia in the 30 year history of the awards to receive Wine Spectator’s ‘Grand Award’ is a great honour and one that we are incredibly proud of,” said Doyle.  “It reinforces that Australia is firmly placed on the map in terms of being a world-class wine and restaurant destination.” 

Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne and Rockpool Sydney were also commended and received a ‘Best of Award of Excellence’, which is granted to restaurants that clearly offer a well-chosen selection of quality producers along with a thematic match to the menu in both price and style, while Spice Temple Sydney won an ‘Award of Excellence’ for its concise wine list of 100 wines.

It has started this week. The Perth site is in clearout mode and will be back to bare concrete on all surfaces by the end of next week. I had my last conversation with the kitchen designers and all is perfect, it will go out to tender next week. All my beautiful Electrolux equipment is going on the production line and the Beech oven guys have designed the improvements in the charcoal oven and the wood fire grill is tried and true. 

It is really exciting, Grant has done a fantastic job. Like our other restaurants this will be one of the most beautiful in the country and have a really cool Perth feel. 

Trish, Kahn and I will be over in the first week of August to hunt for organic producers and fisherman who care for the ocean and their product. We will also be on the search for the all important General Manager . 

Linden is looking at the bar and all the great drinks that will be made there and David and Nicole are going to start looking at the wine list. I suspect they may need to spend a bit of time in Margret River to put the finishing touches on it. Expect a heavy WA selection and some of the greats from the rest of the country and the world. 

So after destruction comes construction. In a week the building will be all focussed on making the dead line of being mostly finished before Christmas!

Bring on Perth we are all very excited!!

Every week we receive 5 Muscovy ducks and 5 chickens from Burrawong. 2 of the ducks turn into a galantine for a first or second course, the other 3 are roasted  to order. Garnishes are really whatever is good on the day and often influenced by something special the guys from Fratelli Fresh have dropped off – it could be Jerusalem artichoke with roast endive and honey mustard sauce – or salsify, turnip and dandelion with a green peppercorn sauce.

At the moment, we are serving the roast chicken accompanied by a garnish involving beautiful Australian truffles – melted leeks, chicken jus and truffled potato puree was last night’s treat.

If you want to take full advantage of the thriving Australian truffle season, you can order a bowl of truffle tagliatelle , potato gnocchi or risotto, with more freshly shaved truffle over the top.

MMMMM….truffles.  As Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once described them – “the very diamond of gastronomy”.

Truffles now on the menu at Rockpool - The Rocks

Working at Spice Temple and Rockpool Bar & Grill during today, doing some staff training at Spice Temple this afternoon on the new order 24 hours in advance dishes. Then flying down to Rockpool at night to see the new bass groper dish and chat to the staff about reaching for the sky, is a truly fulfilling day. It’s great to look up at the screen to see Paul calling service in Melbourne to a packed house. I love spending time with Khan, Andy and Phil in Sydney, all their staff and all the great front of house people who work with me lead by Jeremy, Penny and Baci. Then when I go to Melbourne I have the incredible Vanessa and her front of house team and Paul and his terrific staff in the kitchen, I’m blessed.

It is wonderful to work with three amazing chefs in Sydney and one in Melbourne to be able to put together world class restaurants that are all quite different. Well at least the three in Sydney are.  Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne begot Sydney so they are of the same DNA. Working in and being responsible for restaurants encompassing Fine Dining, Chinese and a great Steakhouse keeps me on my toes.

Add to that all the work we are doing with Qantas at the moment and 3 new places to open in the next six month and you could say I’m a little busy.

Here are a few shots of my day, three great kitchens and the food that they produce with love and care. 

Crockery, cutlery, glassware, uniforms. Graphics all sorted out.

The training has started, Vanessa our Rockpool Bar & Grill general manager has been up to see what it is all about and how the food looks and is served. She is taking that knowledge and working on the flow through the restaurant from kitchen to floor. We are setting up the table numbers and systems. The staff manual has been started.  Induction for all on day one.

Jayde, our beautiful Spice Temple manager for Melbourne has started at Bar & Grill Melbourne and will learn the Rockpool way with Vanessa over the coming months. She will be up in Spice Temple Sydney in 6 weeks for a two week induction with Baci and Andy, learning all about the food and service.

Ben, after 4 years as the second chef at Rockpool Bar & Grill, is our appointed chef for Spice Temple. He is, as of last week, in Sydney working with Andy, myself and Brendan to immerse himself in the Spice Temple way of life. He will spend a couple of months with us and then go back to find his staff. He must only think Chinese from now on!!

Brendan is going to move to Melbourne and I will be there with another 5 staff that have had Spice Temple experience. The kitchen will start strong. Vanessa and Jayde are amassing a floor team to create a great restaurant.

We should be in good shape, it is all about having a good, clear game plan and the time to put it into action.

Things are hotting up and below is some of the food Melbourne can expect.

Importantly, not because of my health, but because the brilliant initiative of Dry July supports people living with cancer and if I can raise money to make someone else’s life more bearable, than it is worth whatever I have to go through or sacrifice for only one month. 

I have a total belief in this charity and cause for two reasons. One some very dear friends and colleges at the Rockpool group have been through and savvied the challenge of cancer and I see what they have been through. Sadly, my father and sister were not so lucky and I got to see firsthand how ravaging and completely cruel this disease is, and what a difference support can make. For me it is a priority to do whatever I can to make a change in both research and importantly care. 

So please if you are a follower of the Rockpool Group and you would like to give as little or as much as you like to my challenge it will be appreciated by many more people than myself. However on a personal note I would be very grateful.