So, back on the Chardonnay wagon (unwooded, this time – no oak here!) and there’s nothing like having someone else do the work for you. This wine was suggested by Adam Easterbrook through the magic of Twitter. Adam even sent me a list of retailers of this wine!

I picked up the Mike Press Adelaide Hills Single Vineyard Chardonnay 2011 (that’s one seriously long name there!) from Cellarbrations at Brighton for the princely sum of $9.99. Yes – that is outside my $15-20 price bracket for this exercise, but packing punch for price is what this exercise is all about …

In the glass the wine is pale gold and with quite a pronounced nose. I’d actually go so far as to describe this wine as surprisingly aromatic. Yes – that’s not a word you’d normally associate with Chardonnay but it’s very apt for this wine. The wine is very tropical fruit – pineapple, mango, some sweet citrus (think pink grapefruit) and maybe even some banana. And the wine tastes of those same tropical fruits as well as some ripe stone fruit – think pineapple and nectarine. The wine has some good, refreshing acidity and nice length and weight.

At just shy of $10 a bottle this wine is really good value – or perhaps it should be ‘insanely good value’. The wine is not for those after something oaky, and nor is it for the occasion where you’re after a restrained, cool climate specimen. However, if you have friends who are Chardonnay nay-sayers (and particularly any obsessed with Sauvignon Blanc) then this is a great wine to show them. Drink it with fish and chips, roast chicken, roast pork … or, indeed, just by itself.

If you have a favourite Chardonnay that everyone should be drinking … let us know!

The lovely people over at Groupon have given Eating Adelaide at $30 voucher to give away to one lucky reader.  You can redeem it for anything on Groupon – but as you’re reading a food blog I guess it will most likely be a restaurant experience!

The rules …

Entry is open to anyone anywhere in Australia – not just Adelaide.

Entries will close at 5pm Adelaide time on Monday 18 June (you have ages to enter!) and I will get in contact with the winner that evening. The draw will be random.

To enter, leave a comment here. Use the same name you use on Facebook and, if you like Eating Adelaide on Facebook, you get two entries for the price of one, so to speak.

If you need some inspiration on what to write in your comment I’d love to hear about your ideal deal. Is there a restaurant that you’d love to try but is a bit pricey so you’d only try it on a deal? Somewhere you’d love to go back to? Or somewhere that’s awesome and doesn’t get as much trade as you think it should?

A slight hiatus in wine reviews and this week not a still Chardonnay. I actually did have one lined up for you but unfortunately a bit of early winter flu very much got in the way of constructive wine tasting. No point in bringing you a tasting note that reads “I felt sick, the bottle of wine sat open in the fridge for three days, it tasted OK”.

So this week I bring you a sparkling wine from Tasmania and at just under 44% Chardonnay it almost fits the Chardonnay brief. This non vintage wine from Bay of Fires is a blend of the three traditional Champagne grapes: Pinot Noir (48.5%), Chardonnay (43.9%) and Pinot Meunier (6%). The wine is made by Fran Austin and Ed Carr (Ed Carr of Arras fame) with grapes coming from some of Tasmania’s best growing areas. This is a good pedigree to start with!

The wine is pale gold with plenty of fine bubbles* in the glass. The nose is quite pronounced with yeasty, bready characters, a touch of citrus and also strawberries and cream. On the palate there is good acidity and the citrus is more pronounced than on the nose – it’s definitely lemon. There are also bread and dairy characters. The back label suggests yoghurt and if you think of a natural, unflavoured and unsweetened yoghurt, this is a pretty accurate description. The wine has good length and the palate finishes with some suggestion of savoury characters.

I really liked this wine and while its RRP is $31.50 you can pick it up for under $30 if you do some research. I haven’t had my favourite sub $30 sparkling wine for a while so I’m not sure if this knocks it off its pedestal or not (yes, that does sound like an excuse to go out and buy more sparkling, doesn’t it?). Definitely a good wine and reasonable value for money.

* The important thing with bubbly is not the size of the bubbles per se but how long they hang around. The smaller the bubbles (the ‘bead’ in winespeak) in theory the longer they’ll take to dissipate.

Banana cake or banana bread? Who knows what the difference is? Certainly not me. It seems to be a bit of a geographic thing … if you’re in the eastern states of Australia (particularly New South Wales) it’s banana bread, similarly if you’re in the US or Canada.

Hopefully this family recipe will be what you’re after, whether you’re searching for a banana bread recipe or a banana cake recipe!

Now – the first thing you need is three super ripe bananas. The horrible ones that have gone all black. It can be tricky to score yourself three at the right level of super ripeness all at the same time BUT I have discovered that you can freeze bananas. All you need to do is take your super ripe banana and pop it in the freezer. You don’t need to wrap it or anything. When you want to use it, remove it from the freezer a few hours in advance (they defrost quickly) and place it on a plate or in a bowl. This is quite important because defrosting bananas lose quite a lot of water.

Make sure you peel the banana when it’s only defrosted a little bit (let’s say 15-30 minutes out of the freezer). Straight out of the freezer it will be too hard, and if you wait too long it will all be too gluggy and impossible to peel. When you’re ready to use the banana, drain off the water it’s lost and ignore the fact that it looks really really ugly and unpalatable!

For the cake, preheat your oven to 180°C (convection, not fan) and grease a 1lb loaf tin.

Beat together 125g of unsalted butter and 175g of caster sugar. If you have a food processor go ahead and use this! Add 2 eggs and beat well before adding 300g of self raising flour. This mixture will be quite stiff at this point.

Add your three overripe bananas, well mashed, and ensure the mix is well combined. Finish by adding 60mL (or ¼ cup) of milk, into which you’ve dissolved 1 tsp of bicarb. This will loosen the mixture up a little and you’ll be able to pour it into your loaf tin.

This will almost fill the tin – but don’t worry – you shouldn’t end up with cake mixture all over your oven!

Bake at 180°C for about 45-50 minutes. In our oven (which is a little slow on convection) it took 50 minutes. I actually started checking the cake around the 30 minute mark but at that point it was still very very wobbly. As usual with cakes, you want a skewer or toothpick to come out clean. And naturally, you want your cake to be lovely and golden.

When done, remove from the oven, allow to cool for a few minutes and turn out onto a wire rack. When completely cool, top with chocolate ganache. You could also sprinkle a few chopped walnuts in a decorative line down the centre.

Perfect for afternoon tea … and using up bananas.

Disclaimer: Coopers sent me some of the new ale to sample. It’s a hard life …

As you may know, this year marks Coopers Brewery’s 150th anniversary. At this point in its history, Coopers is also the largest Australian owned brewery which is more than reason to celebrate.

And, naturally, the way a brewery celebrates is by releasing a Celebration Ale.

I was lucky enough to try some of the Celebration Ale thanks to Coopers, so rather than you bring you their tasting notes, I can bring you my own.

The beer is a dark amber in colour – almost reddish – so it looks quite different to Coopers’ other beers. As with many of Coopers’ beers, some yeast remains in the bottle so it can have a slightly cloudy appearance to it. So far – so good.

The nose is citrussy and hoppy, with a hint of spice to it. The beer actually makes use of three different hops: Pride of Ringwood, Nelson Sauvin and Centennial (that info is there for the beer geeks). Hops act as a preservative but also impart a distinct bitterness (as well as other flavours) to the finished product.

On the palate, this beer is more bitter than many other beers on the Australian market but that is definitely a good thing. The same citrus and spice found on the nose also appear in the mouth and the beer is not madly fizzy (don’t worry though – it’s not at all flat!). The slightly reduced fizz I think makes the beer eminently drinkable and the bitterness from the hops means it would pair really well with a range of foods. Coopers suggests chicken, seafood, tangy cheese and fruit based desserts – of these, I can definitely see the beer working best with sharp cheeses.

The beer is being released in 355mL bottles only (yep – that’s a bit of an odd one!) and is expected to retail for around $55 a carton. This is a beer I definitely recommend checking out – and if we all buy enough of it perhaps Coopers will keep on making it past the 150th celebrations …

Very often I don’t bother icing cakes because I am lazy. Making icing takes time, putting it on the cake takes time (and it takes even more time if you want it to all look pretty) and actually, washing up from the icing making takes time and effort.

However, most cakes are actually better if you do bother. And it might come as a surprise to know that making a chocolate ganache is much quicker than messing around with icing sugar.

Firstly, you have to commit yourself to paying a little bit of attention because you are going to microwave your chocolate. If we were to start using a bain-marie for this, it would take a long time and we’re here to be quick.

These quantities make enough chocolate ganache for a 1lb loaf cake but would also do for a 23cm round cake.

Take 50g of dark chocolate and 50g of unsalted butter, chopped, and melt in the microwave. I do this in 30 second bursts on full power and I hover by the microwave, keeping a beady eye on what is going on. After each burst, I give the chocolate and butter a stir and decide whether or not it needs another full 30 seconds or not. I suggest the first time you do this, you check more often than you think. If you melt chocolate this way regularly enough you’ll get a feel for it – but a mid-melt stir or two remains essential.

Allow the chocolate and butter mix to cool slightly and then stir in one generous tablespoon of pure (NOT thickened!) cream. Give it a really good stir – the mixture will start to thicken and in no time it will be at the right consistency to spread on your cake.

There may even be a little left for a taste test of your own …

date of visit: Friday 11 May 2012

I’ve been to The Little Leaf and Bean (LLB) once before when, if I recall correctly, I had a coffee and a very good slice of a chocolate and vanilla cream cake. I also knew it was child friendly, so when it came to organising a play date (I never know if these are for the parents or the children …) it was an obvious choice.

The play date was set for 9am which was a brilliant idea until I turned up and realised I hadn’t had breakfast. LLB does all day breakfasts – I opted for the house made muesli which was supposed to come with vanilla yoghurt. I don’t like flavoured yoghurts so I asked if they had plain – unfortunately not, so it was just milk for me. The muesli came with the milk on the side, as well as a decoratively cut kiwi fruit. It cost $7.95 and, while it wasn’t a massive portion, it was big enough for my breakfast and it was really good muesli. Big brownie points for not making it too sweet.

The babies enjoyed fruit toast and baby cinos and, after a little walk, we came back and had cake (an orange-almond affair) and more coffees.

LLB has a (free) wireless hotspot and a good sized outdoor seating area. Inside it’s very cosy – some reasonably tightly packed tables and chairs and a couple of sofas tucked in a corner. All in all, a lot more friendly and welcoming than Artisan!

My newest cookbook is The Hairy Bikers’ Best-Loved Recipes. I’ve read through it (yes, I do do that) a couple of times and noted lots of recipes I’m keen to try.

The cooler weather in Adelaide has meant we’ve started thinking about stews, so later in the week you will be able to read all about Dave and Si’s sausage and bean stew.  But let’s start with what we served as a side to it – spiced cauliflower.

I love all brassicas (broccoli and brussel sprouts are two of my all time favourite vegetables) but Andy finds cauliflower really boring. He doesn’t even really like cauliflower cheese! We had a small piece in the fridge that I was keen to use up and this recipe, although for a whole head, is easy enough to shrink to fit.

Begin by heating some oil in a frying pan or (in my case) wok. Add some chilli flakes (or ground chilli), ground cumin, ground coriander, turmeric and freshly ground black pepper. For a whole head, the recipe calls for 2tsp of each spice – but really it’s a case of using however much you like.

Fry the spices for a few moments then add your cauliflower florets and stir fry, ensuring the florets are well coated with the spice mix.

If you have some tamarind paste, stir it into some boiling water (as a rough guide, you’ll need at 250mL for one head of cauliflower) and pour this into the pan.  If you don’t, just use the boiling water.  Add a splash of vinegar and a pinch of salt and then pop on a lid and cook until the cauliflower is tender.  Remove the lid when it’s almost done so any excess liquid can evaporate off.

Don’t be tempted to skip the vinegar – particularly if you don’t have tamarind.  With this dish, it’s really important you have the sour, acidic component to set up the spices.  And yes – this is spicy, but you can always cut out or reduce the amount of chilli you put in.

Delicious and too easy!

date of day out: Saturday 5 May 2012

A group of friends recently organised a day out wine tasting in the Adelaide Hills. We had a reasonably modest agenda for the day – lunch and three, maybe four, wineries.

For me, the day proper began at lunch time. Our original food plan was scuppered so, at the last minute and with no warning, twelve of us descended on the Charleston Hotel in a tiny town (population 120, apparently) called … Charleston.

Luckily for us, the dining room was empty because by the time we’d sorted out our table, only a handful of other diners could have squeezed in. We obviously massively swamped the poor kitchen (the rumour at the table was that there was one person working there) so yes, our food did take a while to come out and no, it didn’t all come out at once. But we quickly figured out what was happening so people had the good sense to start eating. From where I was sitting I heard only one complaint about the food which concerned a very disappointing looking bar meal of spaghetti bolognese. The disappointment was compounded because the individual concerned had considered ordering the awesome looking lamb burger.

I was pleased to note that, for $13, I could order a ‘half size’ schnitzel (topping/sauce extra). I don’t think I’ve had a pub meal where the schnitzel has not been ridiculously huge and I’ve often commented that the children’s sizes have looked sufficient. All the schnitzels (even the half sized ones!) were generously proportioned and thick. This meant they were juicy – no dried out cardboard here. The salad was definitely above par (although, as usual, drowned in dressing) – it was Greek style complete with feta.  And I very much enjoyed my glass of Kersbrook Hill Shiraz too!

The accommodating nature of the businesses around Lobethal was further demonstrated when we turned up at Golding Wines. The cellar door man didn’t bat an eye at our large group – he herded us towards a large table, lined up the entire range and led us through it. If you want a welcoming cellar door, I can think of few places that do this better than Golding*.

Next up we headed to Bird in Hand, where our large group most definitely caused a problem. “Have you booked?” … er, well, no. “Hmm, that will be $10 a head” … er, well, no. The cellar door was full of a bus load of tourists and obviously we represented hard work. While I realise that large groups arriving unannounced can cause problems there must be a more delicate way of dealing with the situation. As locals, it means that we’re unlikely to take guests (either overseas or interstate) to Bird in Hand in future …

We wrapped up the day with Barristers Block, where we were treated to some further Adelaide Hills hospitality. The tasting here was a lot less formal than at Goldings with everyone trying whatever they were interested in. Which worked well because by the end of the day the two cellar dogs were garnering a lot more attention than the wines from some people!

I’ve been all inspired to work my way through the wineries of the Adelaide Hills – I just can’t work out which end to start!  But hopefully there’ll be some more cellar door tales soon.

* I have been there several times before and I’m a fan of their Last Hurrah sparkling and Handcart Shiraz.

Curious Film has generously given Eating Adelaide a double pass to give away to the film Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi documents the life of Jiro Ono, the most famous sushi chef in Tokyo. Ono is 86 years old and runs the three Michelin starred restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro. There are just 10 seats in the restaurant and you can expect to book a year in advance.

If you can’t get to Tokyo and you can’t wait a year, you can now make do with the film.

It opened nationally (Australia) on 10 May. The double pass is an in season pass valid at the following cinemas: Chauvel Cinema, Palace Centro, Palace Nova Eastend, Cinema Paradiso and Greater Union Manuka.

To enter: leave a comment below (use the same name as you use on Facebook please!) AND ‘Like’ Eating Adelaide on Facebook.

As the film has already opened, this competition will run until midday (CST) on Wednesday 16 May, so you only have a few days to enter.

The winner will be drawn randomly – there’s no skill involved other than remembering to comment AND like on Facebook.

Best of luck!