Juliette's Food Spot

Lunchtime on Tran Quoc Toan

2012-08-30T17:06:00.000+10:00

Don't let the kebab stall at the start of Tran Quoc Toan's street eats section put you off, it's just another wonderful Hanoian incongruity. Perhaps its a talisman put there by the food gods to throw off track those of little faith in their search for Hanoi’s famous street food. Though more semi-industrial than atmospherically beautiful in that classic Hanoi way, Tran Quoc Toan’s food zone contains almost every Hanoian street food speciality, so it’s easy to create your own lunchtime street food tour.
Many visitors to and residents of Asia are street food obsessives. After living here for 18 months I’ve realized that the best way to find good street food in Hanoi is to find an area packed with offices, and visit during Hanoi's strictly observed lunch hour of noon to 1pm. Tran Quoc Toan’s location in the busy business area of Hai Ba Trung is the perfect place for this, providing a high enough turnover to ensure a large variety of fresh food is available. Alongside the more established cafes and restaurants, there are stalls that suddenly appear at lunchtime to feed the army of hungry workers. Stallholders frantically set up, dish up, then just as quickly pack up, clean up and disappear. By mid-afternoon you wonder if they were actually ever there. Although Tran Quoc Toan stretches between Yet Kieu and Hang Bai, the main area for street food starts at Ba Trieu - the start of street food heaven marked by the rather greasy looking kebab stall. It finishes around Tran Binh Trong, where the fried tofu with fresh noodles and herbs (bun dau) stall resides. Starting from the Ba Trieu end, just next to the kebab stall there's snail soup, or 'women's food', a bit further up on the north side at 50b there's sticky rice (xoi), then a few doors up, a banh mi omelette stall (omelette sandwich). Com bin danh businesses: mini buffets that usually include a few vegetable dishes, a tofu variant, and a braised pork belly or chicken dish, also come and go from here.
From Truong Han Sieu street up to Quang Trung, on the south side of Tran Quoc Toan is what I call the Noodle Heaven section, established stall after stall selling different kinds of noodles, in soup, dry, fried and in Hanoi’s favourite barbecue dish, bun cha. This section is classic street food – office workers sit on tiny plastic stools, at tables covered with containers of chopsticks and spoons, dipping sauces, limes and paper napkins. The ground is everyone’s garbage bin, the refuse to be swept up afterwards by stallholders or eaten by a couple of scrawny chickens wandering among the tables. My favourite dish is a kind of everything noodle soup - fried wontons, fresh wontons, prawns and pork, all resting on a bed of egg noodles in a prawn stock. A few doors up, there’s excellent ‘bun bo nam bo’ - dry fresh rice noodles, a little sauce at the bottom to be mixed through with herbs, peanuts, fried shallots, and a great favourite with westerners.
After Noodle Heaven ends, cross Quang Trung to get to the street’s busiest restaurant, a classic one dish place that only serves duck and bamboo noodle soup (bun mang vit). An elderly lady is the stalls’ matriarch, standing behind a pile of freshly cooked ducks wielding a chopper, while her staff load noodles, bamboo and soup into bowls and push them forward to be topped with piles of her delicious duck. Eating alone in Vietnam is considering pitiful, but here it works in your favour, as solo eaters here get particularly large portions, presumably to cheer them up. Opposite the duck soup stall is La Petit Tonkinoise, not a street food place but a restored colonial villa and worth mentioning for it’s charming courtyard, a place to relax with a coffee or a cold drink after a meal, just don’t eat the very ordinary food they offer. The next street food place is a little way up the street, after some cafes, which also seem to be packed with workers at lunchtime, and some fruit sellers. The final street food stall is on the corner of Tran Binh Trong. This fried tofu (bun dau) stall is a favourite because of this dish, as it provides a variety of dipping sauces, not just the usual very pungent shrimp sauce (mam tom). Mam tom is an acquired taste that even many Vietnamese find difficult to stomach. Instead, this stall offers a light citrusy sauce made from cumquat juice and sugar that seems a strange choice with fried tofu, but is actually quite refreshing.
At two o’clock the frenetic energy of the street food vendors has gone, the pavements are bare and patrons back in their airconditioned offices. Until the dinner rush starts, Tran Quoc Toan looks like just another drab inner city street.

This article originally appeared in the July edition of Vietnam Heritage magazine.

Eating in Hanoi

2011-08-01T17:47:00.008+10:00

After nearly a year in Hanoi, I'm finally getting into street food. I know, I know, everyone tells me you come here for the street food, it's the only way to try the 'real' local food. However after a lifetime of food and drink-related illnesses - including typhoid, salmonella and numerous bouts of giardia - I've become pretty cautious and have been training my gut to process the local bacteria. Plus there are some fantastic Vietnamese restaurants that serve sanitised but still delicious versions of street food including Quan An Ngon, Nha Hang Ngon, Dieu's Cuisine and the higher end Madame Hien. Oh and did I mention we have a cook that makes the most wonderful bun cha (barbecued meat served with fresh herbs and rice noodles), nem (spring rolls) and pho cuon (stuffed rice noodle rolls)?

The street food I've most been dying to try has been at the bia hois, basic beer cafes that serve beer from kegs and either a few or many different dishes. The one we chose was packed on Saturday night - large, bright with little plastic stools and tables and even an English menu, great for a beginner like me. We ordered our favourite vegetable dish rau muong (Vietnamese spinach) fried with garlic as well as the local classic fried steak and chips called bo bit tet, roast pigeon, and the ubiquitous nem. All were really tasty, not exactly light and healthy, but perfect with a couple of beers. Next up I will be going to a bia hoi that only does a couple of dishes and has no menu, then onto some of the food vendors selling specialised dishes like bun cha and pho cuon. Let the street food journey begin...

The bia hoi we went to was Cua Hang Bia Hoi, 2 Duong Thanh, Hanoi. For more information on places to eat in Hanoi and contact details for the above mentioned restaurants, go to the expat UGC site The New Hanoian or The Word, an excellent Time Out-style website and magazine, or the most famous Vietnam food blog Sticky Rice. Bia hois can be found all over Hanoi, perhaps keep the beer intake at a minimum as the toilets are fairly foul.

Guacamole recipe

2009-03-05T10:18:00.002+11:00

This recipe is a guide - you have to keep tasting (without eating everything) as you go... it's a very easy recipe, the most complicated bit is preparing the tomatoes. If you're making multiple quantities (this recipe makes enough for 4-6 people) take out a tomato or two. Please do not use mushy tomatoes, they have to be firm and fresh. The secret to the flavour is the Worcestershire sauce and a bit of Tabasco or Cayenne pepper. The secret to a good consistency is not to mash the avocados too much - there's quite a bit of liquid in this recipe so unless you want a very runny guacamole, keep the avocado quite chunky.

2 x large avocados (or 3 small), roughly mashed
1 x firm fresh tomato, skin and seeds removed, finely chopped
2 x garlic cloves, crushed
100ml light sour cream (then add to taste)
a few splashes Worcestershire sauce
one splash soy sauce
one splash Tabasco sauce (if don't have, add one shake Cayenne pepper instead)
one shake ground cumin (optional)
one shake ground coriander (optional)
juice from half a lemon, plus extra juice to stop top from browning
a good shake or three of salt
freshly ground pepper
1/2 onion, finely chopped (optional - I never add this)

Mix all ingredients together to desired consistency, taste and add anything you feel it should have more of. Then squeeze lemon juice on top and refrigerate.

Hellenic Republic - restaurant review

2008-12-11T14:29:00.005+11:00

It’s not often I come home from a restaurant puzzling over the receipt in order to figure out why it was all so affordable; a real mystery when the food is as inspiring as the food we had at Hellenic Republic last night. If this is the less expensive, populist taverna-style version of George Calombaris’ Greek food, then I’m ready to sell all of B and my Christmas presents plus a few bits of furniture to finance a trip to try the upmarket, gourmet version found at Press Club. It gets better than this?

Perhaps Hellenic Republic exceeded all expectations as the location of this restaurant didn’t thrill me – on the upper end of Lygon Street in a strip of shops which, though improving, don’t hold a lot of excitement. The restaurant itself is open and modern like a lot of the groovy cafes in the area, with a European-style bar where one can eat or have a drink and an open kitchen showcasing the chefs (presided over by George C himself on the evening we went). Although it was a near-capacity crowd and the décor, as I said, was trendy modern with hard surfaces, our group of eight could all actually hear each other talk and weren’t oppressed by the loud din so characteristic of many similarly designed places. The army of waiting staff were very professional and efficient with just the right amount of chatty friendliness and attentiveness; they really made us feel very welcome and well looked after.

The menu is made up of a large selection of ‘plates’, small portions of food such as you’ll find in tapas - I think in Greece they are called ‘mezze’ – plus main-size dishes and grills. We were lucky enough to have a Greek person who loves food in our party, who ordered for us and very well I thought. She chose a number of small plates and three grills which may have been enough, except we loved two of the plates so much we had to order more immediately. These stand-out plates were a very competent spanakopita ($9.50) and the dish of the evening, graviera saganaki ($11.50), the traditional fried salty saganaki cheese, this time topped with a sweet spicy fig relish (which I know as Syrian spiced figs). We agreed we could probably just eat these two dishes all night and go home happy. Other very satisfying plates we ordered were melizanosalata ($9.50), an eggplant dip, gemista ($12.50) vegetables stuffed with rice and the wonderfully named gigantes (giant beans) $7.50. These beans tasted slightly of rosewater to me which was confusing but not entirely unpleasant.

There was a bit of a wait after this for the grills, uncomfortable to no-one except me with my current pregnant wolfish appetite. We had kalamari ($16.00), lamb spit ($22.00) and grilled vegetables ($18.00). The kalamari was simple, delicious and not at all chewy or rubbery, the vegetables beautifully firm, fresh and naturally delicious, prompting a discussion about how none of our party could ever manage to coerce our grilled vegetables to such a state. Our resident Greek was disappointed with the lamb as she didn’t like the flavouring they’d used on it. I couldn’t identify this flavouring but found the lamb flavour quite strong which I liked but others may not and the lamb slightly overcooked. One of our party ordered her own main, pastitsio ($24.00) which she enjoyed; it seemed to be a hearty sized portion, more like the taverna food I’ve had before.

The dessert menu was full of the almost-sickly sweet traditional treats we all know and love, so we shared four between us – baklava ($12.50), galatktoboureko ($13.50), a hard semolina custard with cherries, loukamades ($12.50), fried round donuts with a honey syrup and kataifi ($14.50), a vermicelli dessert served with ice cream. A fifth, risogalo ($12.50), was quickly added by a rice-pudding lover. All were extremely sweet, as expected, but very well done. For drinks the others had wine served in karafaki ($20) and a sparkling water was $5. Many of us had tea and coffee which were decently priced ($3.50 for coffee and $4.50 for a small plunger of tea).

I must mention what seems to be the big issue facing Hellenic Republic. We were asked by the staff many times if we felt the portions were adequate as other diners have apparently complained they are too small; we replied we felt they were adequate. I’ll qualify this by saying we’d had a bit of bread before starting eating and it was an all-female table – perhaps a large hungry bloke used to big slabs of food found at the traditional Greek taverna might find otherwise. But with food that’s light but extremely flavoursome we generally found the portions fine and in the ones we didn’t, ordered more without it breaking the bank.

The wonderful surprise of the evening came with the bill, $335.50 for eight. We hadn’t held back in ordering extra dishes we particularly loved and quailed at some of the prices (I’d wondered about the $12.50 desserts until I realised there was no way even I could eat a whole one) so were expecting to pay $80 or more a head… and this was less than $50 each including a tip.

Before I’d discovered George Calombaris’ Greek food, I’d gone off this cuisine after having too many stodgy, overcooked meals in fusty old tavernas. Hellenic Republic breathes new life into a cuisine which sorely needs it and will hopefully do for Greek food in this country what Movida did for tapas. I’m heading over to The Press Club as soon as I can afford to, and definitely back to Hellenic Republic soon.

Interview with D who knows a lot about food, in so many ways

2008-11-09T16:47:00.003+11:00

I decided it was time to give my long-suffering partner a rest from my pregnancy whims and fancies, and at the same time visit an old friend D and his partner in Launceston, Tasmania. I first visited Tassie, as it’s known here in Australia, 10 years ago and have been back 3 times now. It’s one of the most beautiful and dramatic places on earth, without being too rugged or inaccessible, and it has what I think is the best produce in Australia. Its cheese, wines, oysters, berries, and apples are wonderful and plentiful.
D and I met at university many years ago and have stayed in touch; partly I think because of our common interest in all things food - its production, recipes and the anthropological and social role it plays in our lives. We also both grew up with mothers who shunned processed food, making their own yoghurt, bread, sweets and cheese, ensuring our palates crave simplicity, freshness and authenticity in food.
I love to discuss food with D as I know he will always have interesting and sometimes provocative opinions on it. He initially studied biology at university, which means his production of food is incredibly well informed. He is very environmentally conscious and wastes little. D’s arts studies as a mature-age student means he’s also trained to look at life from a sociological and anthropological viewpoint.
D’s current lifestyle involves a home with a large kitchen garden in Tasmania, most recently combined with a job which enabled him to travel, sampling many different food cultures. D takes none of this for granted as you will see from this interview-which is a little dated now as it was done in mid-winter. It’s a long interview, but so rich in content and interesting I have really struggled to edit it at all (hence the late publication).
If you like what D has to say, check out his blog at www.inconspicuousliving.blogspot.com

What have you been making lately?
Yoghurt, bread, cottage cheese, labneh (middle-eastern yoghurt cheese), curing olives, sprouts, my partner makes amazing green tea ice-cream and wonderful quince paste. None of these things are difficult at all, yet all require patience.

What food are you growing at the moment?
We’re very fortunate to have a large suburban veggie garden in Launceston and are revelling in it after our smaller inner-urban garden beds in Melbourne. Broadbeans are a regular in our winter veggie garden. They help replenish the soil’s nitrogen content and they taste brilliant. When you grow your own you can enjoy the young bean pods whole as well as the more traditional mature bean seeds. I’ve planted out the bed that had tomatoes in it over summer as tomatoes are heavy feeders and the soil will benefit from the nitrogen. We’ve got an enormous amount of self seeded coriander and dill, as well as two rhubarb plants that are doing famously. Our artichokes are getting bigger and better every time I see them, and I can’t wait to see the first flower buds forming in spring. We’ve got silverbeet (always) and rainbow chard, as well as two varieties of broccoli, the early variety was just forming heads when I left home. I also recently planted out about 25 cloves of local organic garlic I bought from the green grocer – splendid tightly held purple cloves. I hope mine grow as well as the heads I’ve torn them from – I’m hopeful as their stalks were about 15 cm high at the time I departed. We’ve also got a few celery plants, and they’ve been a revelation. They’ve been really easy to grow and the stems are incredibly delicious: crispy and brightly flavoured. A huge favourite, especially used alongside the celery for hearty ribolitta over winter, are our cavelo nero (black Tuscan Kale) plants. Not only do they taste brilliant, rich and loamy like I hope our soil will be one day, they look brilliant. Radish, chervil, various lettuce, sorrel and Italian parsley fills some of the gaps. I haven’t had much luck with chervil to date, but am pleased that the seeds have germinated this time, so I’m hopeful we’ll be adding it to our winter salads soon. I’ve also planted some horseradish in a large pot as an experiment. It can be a terrible weed, hence the pot, but I’m curious to see if I can make some horseradish from its roots.
Outside the veggie garden we’ve also got two young grape vines and some young fruit trees: two apples, two pears, nectarine, quince, peach, apricot, orange, kaffir lime, a black fig, lemon and apple.

I know you also like the work of Michael Pollan. Tell me about your general attitude towards food.
I guess I share with Michael Pollan a distrust of processed food, a belief that good nutrition naturally grows from a strong and sensitive relationship with food rather than obsessing about specific ingredients and nutrients, a barely suppressed despair about the way we interact with our environment and what this may mean for the future, and a distrust of the line that is so often drawn between nature and culture. Food is one of life’s necessities and as it’s at the heart of life and the nature/culture debate it’s unsurprising that we both give it special significance. I’m not the pedant he is when it comes to investigating all aspects of it – even though I love to read the results of such pedantry. What I truly believe is that if you keep it simple, and play an active role in the production and/or preparation of the food you eat you’re in for a rich, and I suspect healthy and ethically sound, life.

Has a training in biology influenced the way you produce and eat food?
While I don’t often think about it, my excitement about making vinegar, yoghurt and bread – which is really enjoying the actions of bacteria and fungi - or observing the biological processes at play in the garden are clearly linked to my early interest in science and nature. Nevertheless, I’d have to say my interest in food, gardens and the poetry of domestic life is equally influenced by my humanities studies (in cultural studies, art history, and studies in religion)

Are there any plants that we don't use as food that you think should or could be eaten? if so, how should they be prepared?
There are a huge number of people/cultures and academics around the world that can answer this question for me. As multicultural as Australia is, the number of plant varieties that it eats is quite small – both in comparison to many other parts of the world and what has been consumed in the past. We can thank industrial agriculture for that as much as our British heritage. Just open a seed catalogue from someone like Eden Seeds, Diggers or the Lost Seed Company and marvel at the variety, despair at what we’ve lost and then act.

Your current job involves a lot of travel. What interesting food or ways of cooking have you discovered on your travels?
I always favour the low-end of the food market, although I find this less easy in China due to language difficulties. Thankfully I usually travel with a Chinese colleague who is a great food-lover and this makes things very very enjoyable. The huge array of foods in China has been a revelation – each province, even each city in a province, offers different, often vastly different, food.

Some of the best food I’ve eaten was in Xian – and, more than anywhere else, I was awakened to the fact that eating food is eating a place’s history. At the end of the Silk Road you’re eating the legacy of the Muslim traders who traveled that route: cumin and chilli encrusted breads, dense, drizzled with oil and grilled over hot coals. Delicately spiced lamb dumplings, steamed and, somehow miraculously, filled with a light broth. Glutinous rice dessert with red bean paste, drenched in a rose-water infused syrup. You can’t beat it – inexpensive, unpretentious and exquisite. Likewise the firey food of Sichuan, or the lovely simple food of Shandong province: steamed fish with a little chilli and spring onion; roughly chopped tomatoes braised with beaten eggs and broccoli steamed and served with a touch of salt and garlic – almost Mediterranean in its simplicity.

Do you think we have much to learn from the food culture of other countries?
Nearly everywhere I’ve traveled has a lively street food culture with the exception of Singapore and parts of the Middle East, both of which still sell street-style food, but rarely if ever on the street. I get so enthralled, and jealous, when walking through the streets of Malaysia and China in particular. There is such a wide range of very inexpensive and fresh foods available. Furthermore it provides the opportunity for those with very limited capital to establish a small business. The globalization of fast food culture is quite depressing – seeing the same bland processed food products around the world. Especially despairing is seeing these brands being positioned as luxury restaurants, when the quality and nutritional value is so lacking, especially in comparison to the marvellous, inexpensive and often far more healthy local food on offer.

Australia can seem so terribly dull upon returning – I have a beautiful life at home, and I’m sure many others do to, but I am sometimes saddened by the British and American influence of staying in. Europe, the Middle East and all of Asia have such a vibrant and accessible public life, and food has such a big part to play in this.

I also admire the way these cultures use absolutely everything from the animals they slaughter. While I can’t abide offal, eyes, duckheads, and more, I think that it’s great that others do. On the flipside, I am concerned about the huge waste that occurs too – hospitality is such a big part of business and community. To show hospitality means putting on a great meal – a really great meal, far bigger than anyone could hope to eat. To eat all your food is an insult, as it suggests you weren’t given enough. To compensate people put on enormous banquets, and so much food is wasted. I have to say I prefer the “eat your broccoli or you won’t get dessert” approach.

Help! Can't cook,won't cook

2008-11-09T11:22:00.001+11:00

I must apologise for my continued absence from the blogosphere. The reason is I am now 5 months pregnant and my pregnancy has unexpectedly, drastically and alarmingly, changed my previously happy relationship with food.
On the plus side, the fact that I was able to become pregnant could be attributed to a particularly joyous food holiday in Singapore (see article below) - my well-researched friend R tells me studies have shown a baby comes in a time of plenty, and, suggests R, it's possible the 3 gazillion calories per day I consumed while on Foodtour Singapore contributed to my suddenly heightened fertility. Whatever the reason, B and I feel blessed to have our own little one on the way... which is fortunate, because now our relationship is being rather strongly tested.
The first trimester was a hellish time which I had not at all anticipated and turned me into a particularly grumpy person. I had morning sickness, that is, morning, noon and early evening sickness to be precise. The cure for which was to eat - not dry biscuits, or gherkins, like the cute smock-wearing mumsy women you see in films - but real, hearty, hot food, mini-meals - and constantly. On a good day, I'd have one mini-meal per hour, on a bad day I'd have to eat every 10 minutes, or the nausea would come flooding back. By midday each day I'd have a thought, so alien to me that it made me re-think the whole pregnancy thing - 'I don't like eating anymore. I hate it!' What had I become?
Second trimester has thankfully eased up the morning sickness, but I have now developed aversions to a very bizarre list of foods that I previously loved - like vegetables, all vegetables, most particularly my previous favourite, the cancer-fighting king of all greens, broccoli. The implications this has for the development of the little one are alarming to both B and I, so in an effort to make up for all the lost nutrients and fibre from this bizarre shunning of vegetables, I am now eating 4-6 pieces of fruit a day, which I am now also growing to hate.
Perhaps the most unexpected problem, however, is completely losing the desire to cook, therefore the ability. Until now I had never realised how important cooking was in my life - providing sustenance for B and I, romancing B or cheering him after a hard day at work, relaxing over a cookbook or three in bed at night, the joy of planning meals to entertain friends, experimenting with a recipe on a Saturday morning, figuring out how best to cook that weird oversized purple potato I'd paid a fortune for at the farmer's market, spending hours making an elaborate recipe (which rarely worked) to impress a foodie pal, coming up with acceptable dishes for my friend's fussy toddler... you get the idea, cooking was a big, big part of my life.
My hobby, my main form of relaxation has been taken away from me - and not just from me but from B, who is as perplexed, frustrated and disturbed by this cruel twist of fate as I am. Perhaps more. In the early days of our courtship, after I'd cooked him elaborate meal after meal, and discovered he shared my love of food and cooking (before I elbowed him out of my domain, the kitchen), I asked him jokingly if he would leave me if I lost the ability to cook. B seemed confused, upset, and looked at me askance and shuddered. What a stupid question, he seemed to be saying, don’t even think it. I laughed – what a ridiculous idea! – but a part of me was unsettled, because when it came down to it, he didn't actually answer my question...
And now here we are. Yes, B can cook, and usually he enjoys it, but coming home each night from a hard day at work, then trying to hide a multitude of vegetables in bolognaise, curries, or under a layer of my current favourite food - cheese - then often seeing me turn my nose up at it is frustrating for him. I think he was prepared to one day do what it takes to get his toddler to eat their greens, but he had never in his wildest dreams imagined it would be me he’d be trying to feed. (At least I don’t spit my food out and smear it all over my face, I tell him brightly, but as he surveys my still-full plate, this only solicits dirty looks.)
After dinner these days, B has a rather large glass of wine after which I catch him sitting on the sofa, a glazed look in his eye, remembering I think, happier times when I ate normally and better, and more importantly shared the wonderful food I cooked with him.
When the little one is a troublesome teenager, I’ll be sure to show them this post, at how much they were wanted and what we went through to ensure they were a well developed, adjusted human being – even in the womb. Fingers crossed it all works out.

Quote of the day

2008-06-24T08:19:00.002+10:00

"I've always like miso soup as it generally displays interesting convection currents."
My father, the scientist.

Lebanese green beans with tomato and onion

2008-06-23T09:49:00.002+10:00

This email I recently sent to my sisters is the perfect introduction to this recipe. Their names have been changed to protect the non-blogging innocent… oh and ‘Big Girls’ refers to the fact that they are older than me, not larger (they are actually rather svelte).

Dear Big Girls
Here’s a recipe I’m using in my new Michael Pollon-esque quest to ‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants’ but also try and reduce my whale-like physique after our recent family eatquest in Singapore. While I’m glad I managed to sample all of the plethora of dishes that make up the Singapore foodscape, the Agnes B shop assistant’s suggestion I go up from size 2 to 3 (that’s medium to large to you) filled me with such horror (never!) that I have been forced to take up the calorific reduction programme so diplomatically suggested to me by our mother.
This dish is one that I know is much loved by Sister no. 2 as we have have ordered it many times in Lebanese restaurants around the world and, Sister no. 1 we may have had a heavenly version at Abla’s recently? I like to eat the dish with a small portion of white fish fillet with a tahini and lemon juice sauce.
Let me know what you think of this dish. It takes a while to cook, so not great for those quick after-work dinners. I took a lot of the oil out of the original recipe for calorific sake and cooked it in a non-stick pan - feel free if you want to add a little more oil for extra flavour.
I hope all’s well and, Sister no 1, that Little Imp has stopped singing that song over and over and over again.
Love
Sister no.3 xx

200g green beans
1 clove garlic, crushed or whole
1/2 cup onions, chopped or slivered
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 x 450g tin tomatoes
pinch sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water
chopped parsley, to serve

Top and tail beans. Heat oil, add garlic and onions and cook until light brown around the edges. Stir in beans and fry for 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar and salt. Simmer partially covered for an hour, until sauce is thick and beans tender. Serve at room temperature sprinkled with chopped parsley.

Tarte Tatin

2008-03-28T14:55:00.007+11:00

Some silly soul showed me a book called Gourmet Shops of Paris (Flammarion) and I have been thinking about it since. My favourite gourmet shop in Paris is probably the most well known, Fauchon, which is on place de la Madeleine. My father and I would go there on a Saturday for their amazing pastries and often hilarious people watching. Every Parisian stereotype was there, the fussy parents with the immaculately dressed, chipie children; the 60-something women in very short skirts feeding little scraps to their poodles; the drageurs - pick-up artists - who were trying to catch a young lady's eye over a cafe creme; the young BCBG couples in denim jeans and tweed jackets; and the confused looking tourists. I would always order my favourite dessert, the same thing I would order at the end of a meal at our neighbourhood bistr0 - tarte tatin.
This is the simplest and, I think, most delicious French dessert. Far less popular in this country than French favourites chocolate mousse and creme caramel, tarte tatin is a caramelised apple tart.
The original tart was made by nestling apple halves in a deep flan dish, sprinkling with sugar and butter, then topping with a shortcrust pastry lid. Once ready to eat, the tart would be served by inverting the flan dish onto a plate so the pastry was underneath and the apples, now a rich, golden colour, would sit up on top, slightly mushy but still firm enough to defy gravity and hold the flan dishes' shape.
This recipe is easier as it uses ready-made puff pastry. It also ensures the caramelisation of the apples occurs by making the caramel beforehand. This is the hardest part of the process, as the caramel burns quickly. So be alert!
The tart is best eaten just above room temperature with cream or icecream.

1 sheet ready-made puff pastry
6 large green apples
10g unsalted butter, melted
Caramel:
50ml water
100g caster sugar
25g unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 190 degrees and defrost one sheet of puff pastry.
Peel, halve and core the apples and set aside.
Make the caramel by placing the sugar and water in a heavy based saucepan over a medium heat. Monitor closely without stirring until the mixture is a light golden brown. Take off the heat immediately and stir in the unsalted butter (25g). Pour into an 18cm round baking tin.
Arrange the apple halves in the tin, cutting up a few halves to fill in any gaps. Brush the melted butter over the halves.
Bake for 30 minutes, then place the puff pastry sheet over the apples, trimming off extra pastry. Cook for another 3o minutes, until golden brown. Cool until just lukewarm.
Serve by running a knife around the inside of the tin, ensuring no pastry sticks to the side. Then place a plate over the tin and turn quickly and carefully upside down. Remove tin, you may have to tap it a few times, and voila... a gorgeous, tarte tatin.

Out of the Frying Pan at Melbourne Food and Wine Festival

2008-02-24T09:17:00.006+11:00

Hello again! It's been a while, I know - the pressures of a new job mean little time to bobble about in the kitchen testing recipes and learning new ones. However there are a few in the works which I hope to have on the blog for you soon so please be patient!
The reason for this post is that the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is now on again and is packed with an incredibly diverse number of events. While many of the events have now sold out, there are still tickets left to many fantastic events...
Such as Out of the Frying Pan, an all-day event which will discuss all things food - as in future trends, media (including blogging!), how to write recipes and, for me, the most anticipated event, a session with William Sitwell the editor of Waitrose Illustrated (Waitrose is a kind of gourmet supermarket in the UK and the magazine is amazing). So for anyone who either works in food media, intends to one day or just plain fantasises about it, get along to this event.
When: 9am, 3 March 2008
Where: The Langham Hotel, Southbank, Melbourne
For tickets, click here.

Roasted pumpkin, goat's cheese and pine nut salad

2007-10-14T21:48:00.001+10:00

So it seems I've joined the ranks of recipe and menu writers who insist on putting the name of every ingredient in a dish in its title... but I can't help it when this dish only has three ingredients. And Pumpkin Salad just doesn't sound very appetising.
This one's a winner at every barbecue we take it to and has given us the (apparently easily attained) reputation as gourmets. It can be varied easily too, by adding a different nut, or a creamy fetta instead of the goat's cheese, or roasting some slices of red onion with the pumpkin and adding them too. But I'll let you do the getting carried away, here's the basic recipe.

1 butternut pumpkin, cut in cubes, roasted
250g soft goat's cheese, in oil if possible
100g, pine nuts, lightly toasted

Combine all ingredients. Season and sprinkle liberally with parsley. Serve, drizzling with a little of the goat's cheese oil if you have it.

Spanish Pork Chops

2007-10-14T21:31:00.001+10:00

This is a dish my mother used to make all the time and the first Spanish dish I think I ever ate. We used to have it so often that I assumed that all Spanish people (who in my mind were exactly like the ones found in Asterix in Spain) ate this dish for dinner every other night.
I have eaten many other Spanish dishes since then, some actually in Spain, and would say this dish is an accurate portrayal of what Spanish people actually do eat. It contains many typically Spanish ingredients - pork, tomatoes, red capsicum, paprika, onions and garlic. And you can easily add another classic Spanish ingredient - beans (as in kidney or white) - to it if you'd like a really hearty version.
I'm sure the authentic recipe for this would contain ingredients like Spanish paprika but one of the things I like about it is that it is simple, with ingredients I can find at pretty much any supermarket around Australia.
Posh it up if you like with chorizo and some organic pork.

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 pork chops
1 teaspoon paprika
1 red capsicum, cut into thin strips
1 tin tomatoes
200g black olives

Heat olive oil and fry onion and garlic for one minute. Add red capsicum and paprika saute on a low heat for five minutes. Add chops and brown, being careful not to burn the other ingredients. Add tomatoes and a can of water. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occassionally. Add olives just before serving, then if you have it, some fresh parsley. Season with salt and pepper just before serving.

Pumpkin soup

2007-07-29T21:21:00.002+10:00

I would never make a pumpkin soup for vegetarians. Firstly because they get served this everywhere they go, secondly - and most importantly - because the version I grew up with has two kinds of meat in it. My mother doesn't understand soups that don't contain some kind of meat stock. I don't necessarily agree, but this version of pumpkin soup is so delicious that, in comparison, I find the vegetarian versions more like spicy purees than soup.

I like to use the butternut pumpkin for the flavour and because they tend to have a little more meat in them than other varieties. And if I'm going to spend time and energy trying to get all hard skin off a pumpkin and de-seeding it, there better be a lot of flesh!

Pumpkin soup

500g butternut pumpkin, skinned, de-seeded and cut into cubes
1 large onion, chopped
3 rashers bacon, rinds removed and chopped
250ml chicken stock or 1 stock cube
milk or cream (optional)

1. Place pumpkin in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to boil.
2. While the pumpkin is cooking, fry onion and bacon together until
the onion is brown.
3. Place the pumpkin, onion, bacon and either 250ml chicken stock
or 1 stock cube plus 250ml of pumpkin cooking liquid in a blender
and blend until smooth.
4. Test thickness of the soup - if you would prefer it thinner,
add either milk or the rest of the pumpkin cooking liquid to the
consistency desired
5. Season well with salt and pepper.

La Verrine (and why French women really don't get fat)

2007-06-17T16:37:00.000+10:00

I recently read an online article about a French fad of eating food in layered glasses called verrines. For some reason the idea of eating a salad, or other types of savoury food in a glass seems disgusting to me; however one of my trademark easy desserts is apparently a verrine.

The article made me laugh as I remembered how much the French love to make a fuss over every little thing and exclaim!!! a lot. One doesn’t find a fresh, firm, unmarked and fragrant peach at the market and put it in the basket, uncelebrated. It is very important to lift the peach high in the air and utter the latest cool exclamatory expression, followed by a host of others, each with the basic meaning ‘Fantastic!’. The first time I saw a woman doing this, I thought she was, well, a bit simple, but then I noticed all the chic women doing it and that it was de rigeur.

At the boulangerie under my parent’s apartment in Paris, Madame would not serve you if you did not exclaim loudly upon entry ‘Bonjour Madame! How are you today? You look wonderful! Isn’t the weather incredible! How is your beautiful dog?’ My sister, who is quite shy and doesn’t like have to perform like this, was always served last in that shop.

All of this exclaiming can make food shopping in France a very exhausting process. That’s why, I suspect, French women don’t get fat, they expend so much energy exclaiming over their shopping.

My ‘verrine’ is very simple, Middle East in influence and relies on good quality ingredients, particularly yoghurt.

It is very simple and you can even eat it if you have had a heavy main. It is high on flavour but not bulk.

Step 1.
Take one glass per person and fill to 1/4 full with the fruit of your choice - plums roasted with vanilla sugar and cinnamon until they are slightly caramelised, frozen berries slightly defrosted, perhaps drizzled with a little white chocolate or the simplest mango puree (a $10 box of mangoes from Footscray market purchased during the summer, and cut up and frozen, means the current favourite is a mango verrine.)

Step 2.
Top this layer with an equal amount of very good yoghurt.

Step 3.
Drizzle this with honey, a sprinkle or rose or orange flower water and some crushed pistachio nuts.

Wu xi pork

2007-06-11T23:41:00.002+10:00

A recent house guest came from Wuxi in China. She cooked us this dish, which is so easy to make, and so delicious we had to eat it again two days after we first had it.

The main ingredient of this dish, pork belly, is shunned by many people because of the high fat content. When we were served this dish, there were five other dishes on the table, mostly vegetables, and steamed rice. The pork belly made up less than 10% of the meal - so the fat content would not have been over the top.

Wu Xi Pork

500g pork belly

1 teaspoon soy sauce (light or dark)
1 teaspoon sugar

Chop the pork belly into 1 cm x 1cm chunks, so they look like lardons. Place pork into a fry pan and fry on high for one minute before turning the heat to low and adding the soy sauce and sugar. These will mix with the rather abundant juices of the pork and around 30 minutes later will slowly caramelise. Do not put a lid on the frypan as the pork may explode.

Variations: After you have made this dish once you can add chunks of onion or capsicum and a little chilli 10 minutes before cooking is complete.

Quote of the day

2007-04-01T20:45:00.001+10:00

"There are some things I don't like, about which I think, well, that's me. But coriander is a giant hoax perpetrated by a perverted society"
Stephen Fry

Canapes for the hungry hordes

2006-10-19T11:13:00.000+10:00

We have a party coming up so it's time to think about the tricky issue of canapes. Within an hour of every party I host I start to feel like I've been invaded by hordes of hungry savages whose vast appetites must be sated or I will meet a grisly fate. This is, of course, not true. My friends are a forgiving lot who are generally good cooks and always offer to bring food. They are however turned down by my uber-hostess control freak ego who insists on providing all refreshments herself. Which can mean catering for up to 50 hungry people single handedly. One day I will be found gibbering on the kitchen floor covered in pesto and olive tapenade and taken away to get the help I truly need but until then... what do I serve at cocktail parties?

There is one main problem I find with serving party food - leave out a spread for guests to serve themselves or carry round canapes? If you put the food - dips, cheeses, nibblies - out for the guests to fend for themselves, within about two hours you are left with a disgusting mess which looks terribly unappetising, unhygienic and half the food's ruined ('who on earth put the guacamole spoon in the brie?'). The problem with carrying trays of food around is that once it runs out (and inevitably all the good stuff is served first and goes quickly which just leaves you no place to go but down), you have to spend ages in the kitchen making more. And with the more complicated canapes, like fried spring rolls or fish cakes, this is pretty tiring and messy and, if you've had a few drinks yourself, downright dangerous. Weighing these two problems up, I tend to go with the carrying round trays of canapes option. It makes a party feel more sophisticated, setting a tone that even the most unruly guests can't ignore. There's usually more than enough volunteers to carry round the food - this is a great way for people who have either come alone or aren't great social mixers to meet people.

That just leaves one problem - having enough food to take around the whole night without running out. This means I've decided to forgo the hot food - it's not dinner we've promised, after all - and go with cold stuff which in fact is much easier for guests to handle. No hot food means no greasy fingers to soil your favourite sofa!

The fact that I don't own 50 chinese spoons or shot glasses (fresh oysters, cold soups) or want to spend ages cooking and preparing (tortillas, sushi rolls) cuts out a whole range of yumminess, so it's back to good old '70s style bites I remember my parents serving.

A basic rule is to take a plain, starchy but firm base - toasted bread, crackers, mini popadoms, tartlet cases - and top them with some strong flavours. Garnish with fresh herbs to add flavour and colour.

Suggested toppings are:

- cannelini bean puree (blitz a tin of beans with olive oil, salt and garlic) + anchovy
- hummus + sundried tomatoes + dukkah
- salsa + guacamole
- smoked salmon + horseradish cream
- smoked trout dip (mix smoked trout, cream cheese, paprika, lemon and chives)
- pesto + olives
- cheese and gherkin
- brie, gran padano or cheddar with onion jam
- goats cheese + roasted capsicum
- tinned sardines + red onion
- pate + flat leaf parsley

Sandwiches

Sandwiches can be on white, brown, rye bread, cut into triangles, halves or shapes (with cookie cutters).
They fill people up more than little bites like tartlets, but somehow seem less sophisticated.

Suggested fillings are:
- egg + mustard cress + mayonnaise
- tinned salmon + mayonnaise + capers
- cheddar cheese + ham + chutney
- roast chicken + lettuce + mayonnaise
- smoked salmon + cream cheese
- roasted veges (eggplant, red capsicum) + pesto

Toothpick food
- melon wrapped in proscuitto
- kabana or cooked chorizo sausage
- smoked oysters

And to finish off the evening - large strawberries dipped in dark chocolate, then refrigerated until serving.

Quote of the Day

2006-10-16T21:28:00.000+10:00

"I refuse to believe that trading recipes is silly. Tunafish casserole is at least as real as corporate stock."
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

Sunday Night Salad

2006-08-07T18:16:00.000+10:00

The Sunday Night Salad was inspired by three things. Firstly, a summer in Montpellier 10 years ago when I discovered a whole new way of eating - the salad as a meal in itself. My friends and I would dine alfresco each night in the local square’s café. We would have huge plates of salade nicoise or salade composee, accompanied by the café’s favourite beverage, beer with strawberry syrup! Secondly, Nadine Abensur, an amazing chef who for a long time ran London’s Cranks vegetarian cafes (refuges from the generally stale, unhealthy and uninspiring food to be found in central London) and now writes wonderful cook books. And thirdly, the need for a meal of fresh, healthy food on Sunday nights that might be an antidote to a weekend of overindulging in rich foods and wine... perhaps a modern, PC version of high tea!

The Sunday Night Salad is a bit of a throw together piece, using whatever it is you have left in the fridge and cupboard and putting it together in layers, on individual plates, one for each diner. It's quite fun putting together all those different textures and colours; you can be quite creative with it. Like a stir fry there’s a bit of chopping and preparation to be done before everything is put together. However, unlike a stir fry, it's a pretty low stress meal with little actual cooking and can be done in your own time.

Not all layers have to be put on it. It really is up to what you have available. Here, however, is what I suggest:

Layer One
A covering of green leaves, eg baby spinach and/or various kinds of lettuce

then

Layer Two
Vegetables that have been cooked and chopped into bite-size chunks
eg steamed green beans, broccoli, asparagus or roasted pumpkin, sweet potato, potato

then

Layer Three
Salad vegetables eg slices of red capsicum, radishes, vine-ripened tomatoes, grated carrot, sliced avocado, tinned sweetcorn or beetroot, even a few slices of pear or apple

then

Layer Four
A form of protein - tinned tuna or salmon, smoked fish, chicken or ham; salami or chorizo, a boiled egg or any number of cheeses

then

Layer Five
Lightly toasted nuts or seeds (particularly good for vegetarians) and chopped fresh herbs
eg pine nuts, cashews, slivered almonds, sunflower, pumpkin or sesame seeds
topped with parsley, basil or mint (use these two sparsely)

then

Layer Six
Some strong flavours - capers, olives, sundried tomatoes

Lastly, of course, a simple dressing to give it all a bit of extra flavour. A squeeze of lemon juice, some balsamic vinegar, seasoning and a good splash of extra virgin olive oil.

Very quick fresh pasta with ricotta and peas

2006-07-23T21:43:00.000+10:00

Last December I was given a pasta machine but didn't use it until recently when my friend Dean showed me how to. Pasta is one of those foods that, like dumplings, is best to learn from a person, not a book. The subtle, hard-to-describe touches - when the dough is ready, how to gently pull the pasta from the machine - are so much easier when demonstrated by a friend. And I think any opportunity to spend time creating something wonderful together with a dear friend should be taken.

I'm now a practised and addicted fettucine maker. I'm not going to give instructions on that here - I'm sure you have a cook book at home with a great recipe and hopefully a friend who can teach you much better than I can. Bought fresh pasta is generally pretty good too and best for this recipe as, like the sauce, it's really quick to make. I've tried a number of sauces, all simple so as to appreciate the freshness of the pasta - and this one is definitely the most popular and more-ish. Happily, it's also very easy to make. Salt and pepper are extremely important to help flavour this dish, so be sure to be liberal with them.

This dish can seem quite gluggy so be gentle when stirring through the sauce... although even then it may seem a little gluey. In that case I'd advise you to close your eyes and eat it, savouring every delicious mouthful!

This recipe will serve 4 people.

250g fresh ricotta
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
1 cup frozen peas (petit pois if possible)
1 spring onion, finely chopped
a few sprigs of mint, finely chopped
freshly ground salt and pepper
1 teaspoon lemon zest, finely grated (optional)

300g cooked fresh fettucine

Cook the peas in boiling water. Combine the remaining ingredients, then add the peas to these. Stir this sauce through hot pasta and serve immediately.

Dumpling Ah

2006-04-19T14:56:00.001+10:00

As children, my sisters and I used to say that to speak Cantonese you just follow each sentence with the word ‘ah’. Based on this assertion, we called these Chinese dumplings Dumpling Ah. (Similarly, to speak Queenslandese follow each sentence with ‘ay’, ay.) Every Chinese person I know has some childhood memory of making these dumplings with their mothers and aunties. It’s a great communal exercise – one of those dishes that is a bit boring and repetitive so best done in huge quantities over a gossip with friends and frozen uncooked for later cooking and consumption (be sure to cook from frozen - do not defrost!). This recipe makes about 50 dumplings

As a time poor 9-5er, I now see them as a great convenience, comfort food. Most wonderful in the winter months when you get home exhausted and hungry. Instead of spending all that time and money going out for takeaway, steam these and a few veges in 10 minutes...

The two main ingredients of Dumpling Ah are gow gee wrappers from the supermarket (other cooks may make the dough; I’m too lazy). These are the round white wrappers found in the refrigerated section of the supermarket, usually somewhere near the yellow hokkein noodles. The other main ingredient, pork mince, is harder to find. You may need to go to a butcher - I've found it in few supermarkets here in Australia. The other ingredients can usually be found in larger supermarkets and at specialty Asian ones.

500g pork mince
packet gow gee wrappers
6 shitake mushrooms, soaked for 10 minutes
1 cup Chinese cabbage, grated and liquid squeezed out
1 small knob ginger, finely grated
2 spring onions, finely chopped
1 small tin water chestnuts, chopped (optional)
splash each of soy sauce, Chinese rice wine and sesame oil

Squeeze liquid from the mushrooms and chop finely. Combine with the other ingredients and, using your hands, ensure they are all evenly distributed.

Take a gow gee wrapper and lay on an even, dry surface. Place a teaspoonful of the mixture on a wrapper, dip your finger in a bowl of water and wet the edge of the wrapper and fold over so the edges are joined. Pinch the edges of the wrapper, in around 6 places, giving the dumpling a “scalloped” look.

There are 3 main ways to prepare dumplings. Boil, steam and fry/steam.

Boiling – bring a pot of water to the boil. Place dumplings in the water and boil for 5 minutes. The skin will go translucent when they are ready. Rescue them immediately or they will fall apart.

Steam – place dumplings in a steamer and steam for five minutes. The skin will go translucent when they are ready

Fry/steam – unlike the previously mentioned methods, this method requires constant attention otherwise they will burn. Place dumplings, flat side down, in a heated frypan. Fry lightly for 2 minutes, then quickly add 50mls of water and immediately put on the lid. This will steam them.

Serve with a variety of dipping sauces – soy with ginger and spring onions, chilli sauce or chinese vinegar.

Pumpkin scones

2005-12-25T11:18:00.000+11:00

This recipe betrays my roots in two ways. Where else but Queensland (formerly known as The Deep North) would you find pumpkin scones? I found the recipe in my old batter splattered home economics cook book called Day to Day Cookery for Home Craft Students. Home economics was a subject I almost failed because my apple charlotte was not perfectly presented, I couldn't cut the sandwiches straight in the Oslo lunch and my pikelets weren't perfectly round. But despite my inability to please the aesthetic sensibility of my teacher, I enjoyed the subject because it was my first real introduction to Australian suburban cooking.
Don't worry if the mixture in this recipe seems too wet and gluggy, it's supposed to be quite sticky. The scones come out a beautiful orange colour and are quite a bit sweeter and more cake-like in texture than plain scones. I used Queensland blue pumpkin for this recipe.

Pumpkin Scones

2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup mashed pumpkin
2 cups self raising flour
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4-1/3 cup milk
extra flour for rolling

Beat butter and sugar to a cream. Add egg and beat well, then pumpkin.
Add milk and flour and mix into a moist dough (I find using a butter knife to mix works well.
Turn onto a floured board and knead lightly, then press with palm of the hand until it is about 2.5cm in thickness.
Cut into scones and place on a greased and floured tray. Brush tops of scones with milk.
Bake in a hot oven (approx. 220c) until well browned. Roll in a tea towel to cool.

Supper recipe - Oyster mushroom bruschetta

2005-11-29T13:45:00.000+11:00

When I first moved to the UK I was amazed at the severity of the class system. I had heard my parents speak about it and seen Ken Loach and Mike Leigh films alluding to it, but seeing it in every day life and the way it subtly manifested itself in every nuance of society was quite amazing. Perhaps this was so apparent to me because of the discrepancy between where I lived, working class and mostly black Brixton and where I worked, a film company staffed by Oxbridge educated, upper class white people.

I loved Brixton and its street colour and funky vibe but I also fell in love with my colleagues at the film company, who were gentle and sweet and had the loveliest manners I had ever encountered. There was one word that my colleagues used that set them apart from the other Britons I knew, which was 'supper'. These people didn't have dinner, or tea as we said back home in Queensland, they had 'supper'. My boss would put his head round his office door and say in his gravelly, soft voice "Juliette, could you please book me in at Chez Gerard for supper tonight" and I was always thrilled to hear it, perhaps because through linguistics he was conferring on me the same status as my colleagues. (I was equally thrilled in Brixton when the Jamaican boys at the end of my street spoke to me in patois - this was more about fitting in than wanting to be upper class.)

There was also a nostalgic thrill associated with this word as it took me back to a childhood of books by Enid Blyton and E. Nesbit graduating in adulthood to PG Wodehouse, Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh. And there was the swathe of UK TV shows so loved by ABC TV in the 1970s and '80s, All Creatures Great and Small, Brideshead Revisited and the endless remakes of Bronte sisters and Jane Austen novels so beloved by Australian audiences.

I always had my own definition of supper, which is a light meal taken at the end of the evening, perhaps to stave off hunger during the night. It's something I might have after an evening out which involved early dinner then some entertainment - a movie or a show - which usually involves some alcohol consumption. In my younger days, when alcohol consumption was the entertainment, supper was a takeaway kebab. These days, alcohol consumption much lowered, I'm happy to go home and cook up something light and easy before bed. A bit of grease is good and comfort is definitely needed.

Here is my favourite supper dish. Not hard to make, tasty with just the right amount of grease and carbs to soak up any extra booze in your system.

Oyster mushroom bruschetta
(per person)

1 packet oyster mushrooms (approx. 50g)
1 red chilli, finely chopped or a pinch of chilli flakes
1 large clove garlic,
1 slice of sourdough bread
olive oil
fresh parsley, chopped (optional)

Brush sourdough with olive oil and grill until light brown. Be vigilant - burning this is very easy!!
Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a frypan. Add garlic and chilli and cook until it exudes a strong aroma.
Add mushrooms. Fry, shaking the pan quite often, until mushrooms are wilted and edges browned.
Place mushroom mixture on toast. Top with fresh parsley and a splash of olive oil.

Restaurant review - The Vegie Bar, Fitzroy

2005-11-28T14:22:00.000+11:00

The Vegie Bar, 380 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.
Open 11am-10pm, Licensed
Accepts some credit cards and EFTPOS
Tel: 9417 6935
Starters $3-5, Wraps/Burgers/Pizzas, $7,50, Mains $10.50, Desserts $5

The best thing about the Vegie Bar is the varied choice you have in seating. Walk into the barn-like sunny room and you can choose to sit at tall stools at the front window and watch the boho Brunswick Street crowd amble by, on purple or orange retro swivel bucket seats at a communal table, on a side padded banquette, on a groovy upholstered sofa at a coffee table or at your traditional 4-legged wooden cafe table with wooden chairs.

Something for everyone, which I think is very much what the Vegie Bar is trying to do. A cross between a hippie vegetarian cafe and a sleek Brunswick Street bar, the Vegie Bar is a Fitzroy institution. Its clientele is representative of the area, a diverse mix of students, graphic designers from local studios, chic older bohemians in designer gear and hippie families with brightly dressed children. It's a vibrant, friendly place with the kind of vibe so many other cafes on that strip would kill for, but there's just one major problem. The food.

On my first visit to the Vegie Bar, a classic autumnal Melbourne Sunday - rain, hail and shine all in one day - my friend and I were just happy to escape the elements inside its warm buzzing atmosphere. Chosing between vegie burgers, pizzas and wraps on their small meals menu we settled on a couple of wraps. Mine was a roti wrap filled with lentils and it was adequate - warm, filling and tasty; the roti itself lightly fried and just the right side of chewy and elastic, the filling a mushy, tasteless disappointment which reminded me of the "everything stew" of my penniless student days. My friend replaced the wholemeal bun with a roti in his tempeh burger and loved it. We both ordered lemongrass tea ($2.50) as an accompaniment which was refreshing.

I recently visited again on a slow Monday lunchtime. Not as crowded or warm as on the Sunday but on the food front, very disappointing. The soup of the day, sweet potato, lemongrass, corn and chickpea tasted alright at first (although the copious amount of chickpeas in it made it more like stew than a soup) but my palate soon wearied of the cloying sweet taste. That it was obviously microwaved in the bowl in which it was served and lukewarm in patches didn't help me finish it either and I moved quickly on to my next course. For my main, buoyed by my previous roti experience I had lentil and potato curry with roti and brown rice. The roti was again scrumptious but the brown rice was dry and hard, the lentil and potato curry flavoured overridingly by cumin and not much else, rendering it inedible. I limped along to my dessert course and had a look at the well-presented dessert bar where I found the standard Brunswick street cafe cakes - sticky date pudding, fruit crumble, cheesecake and vegan chocolate cake all served with cream or ice cream. I ordered the chocolate cake, reasoning not much could go wrong there, and soon found myself scraping off and eating the admittedly delicious icing from a dry cake that tasted like the refrigerator where it lived.

To be fair, my fellow diners seemed to be enjoying their food and I noticed none of them left a crumb on their plates. Perhaps this is because they ordered more wisely -nachos, home made pizzas and burritos, food that is safe to order in basic vegetarian establishments. I think I just expected more carefully cooked and served food from the Vegie Bar, but I'll know better next time.

Recipe - Double chocolate chip cookies

2005-11-28T13:33:00.000+11:00

I recently bought an oven thermometer and was equally horrified and pleased at what I found - horrified because I realise my oven's been cooking at 50 degrees lower than the temperature I set it at, pleased because now I can bake without fear, without having to increase the cooking time and then checking nervously every 5 minutes to see if the dish is cooked. Oven thermometers are not expensive - between $5 and $10 each - and can be found at kitchen shops. Unless you have the latest, state-of-the-art oven I heartily recommend you buy one.

I can now happily bake my favourite cookies (apologies for using the term cookies instead of biscuits - chocolate chip biscuits just doesn't sound right) without fear. These cookies are meant to be soft and chewy and can seem undercooked when done so it's necessary to have an accurate guide as to when they are actually cooked.

Double chocolate chip cookie recipe

125g unsalted butter, softened
1&1/4 cups or 250g firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1&1/2 cups or 225g plain flour
1/2 tspn baking powder
100g dark cooking chocolate, roughly chopped
100g white cooking chocolate, roughly chopped
(optional - nuts of your choice, crushed a little)

Preheat oven to 180C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Place butter and sugar in bowl and beat until smooth.
Add vanilla and egg and continue to beat until just combined.
Sift in the flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt, then fold in.
Stir through chunks of chocolate (and nuts if wanted).
Place tablespoonfuls of mixture 4-5cm apart on baking tray.
Bake for 15-20 minutes (check at 10) until golden. Cool a bit, then gobble up.