Category Archives: Home cooking

Eating Out, Home cooking

Quack

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Duck

Hi Tony,

Its open fire, roasted chestnuts and red wine time of year. And to think, all of that without cranking the airconditioner up.

Funny, no snow on the ground in the mountains yet, but we are already thinking about spring/summer again. That may have something to do with a little party we are planning in the spring…or because we are hanging out to slide down a hill and ride a lift back up again. Not sure which, maybe a little from column A and a little from column B.

Been working silly long hours, both of us, so the cooking has taken a bit of a backseat. Weekends have been our saviour. A chance to spend a few hours in the kitchen and get a few things made and frozen.

Come winter proper, we’ll be back at Mt Buller every weekend. Might put pay to some of the weekend cooking. Going to have to find a solution for that at some point.

Hey, when was the last time you made dumplings? Yeah, thought that might be the case…why would you make dumplings if you can buy them in Chinatown for a couple of baht each? Ok, so I spent a couple hours mixing up some minced chicken, lemongrass, ginger, coriander, garlic, chilli, sesame oil and Xiao shin wine and then folding a teaspoon full in some gyoza wrappers. Sure, I cheated at this point…I didn’t make the gyoza wrappers. Store bought. Not half bad though.

dumplings

Try this, some chicken stock, ginger, dark soy sauce bring to the boil, add the dumplings and after a while, Chinese broccoli, oyster mushrooms and some egg noodles. Great fast winter filler.  Wash it down with something zesty like an aged Petaluma Riesling.

dumplingsoup2

Do you ever get home at the end of the day and just have a hankering for something? Even if it means standing in 12C and rain whilst bbq’ing some chicken thigh fillets marinaded in cumin, sumac, turmeric, dried chilli, garlic and olive oil. But even more challenging, proving and baking some Turkish bread at the same time. Throw a little thinly sliced cucumber, chilli relish and tahini (with hot water and freshly chopped parsley) and you have a killer chicken burger!

Speaking of bread. I did a bread making course at the Abbotsford Convent over summer. They have an amazing wood fired oven, but doing a course there on a 40C day is not advisable. Was a great course, but I was scanning the paper today and low and behold, there is a pic of Baker Bob. Ok, it wasn’t such an inspiring story to go with the art. Seems Baker Bob was dabbling in other sorts of dough.

Revisited an old fav on Friday night. Not sure if you’ve been to Old Kingdom? It’s a Melbourne institution. Forget the menu, little on it that you would want to order. Duck is what it is about. It’s a duck 3 – way. Starts off with Peking duck, moves on to duck stir fry then finishes things off with duck bone soup. Wash it down with a bottle of pinot noir, either red or sparkling…who knew that Champagne would go so well with duck?!

Quieter time planned this week. I think I’ve done my bbq’ing for the week. Might crank the heater and hang out inside. Perhaps even light a fire and find a suitable bottle of red. Maybe a Forest Hill Cabernet?

Home cooking

Greener Pastures

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Lamb

 

Tender and delicious (left). Farmer (right).

Great Dan. While you were braving Melbourne’s winter to barbeque/smoke fish, I was busy making a lamb ragù and home-made Pappardelle in 37-degree heat!

At least the weather came to the party and I got a storm when I was dishing up, so with the air-conditioning cranked up it seemed an appropriately wintery night for a hearty slow-cooked meal and a glass of red.

Greener grass; it’s a great motivation, no?

Oh, and if you’re American, that’s 99-degrees F. Please, get a more sensible system – 0-degrees for freezing water and 100-degrees for boiling it makes comprehending it so easy. Your option is 32-degrees and 212? Really?

The lamb was sort-of made up, but something like this: Brown lamb pieces in a heavy cast-iron pot, set aside. Add onion and pancetta and cook until the onion starts to colour. Deglaze the pan with a glass of wine, add stock, tomato paste, carrot and a bay leaf or two and simmer for three hours or so.

The pasta’s about the opposite in terms of cooking time. Mix about 1.5 cups of flour with two eggs and a generous pinch of salt. Knead and set aside for 30 mins. Run it through the pasta machine and cut into wide strips. Cook in boiling water for about 2 minutes.

There’s no substitute for fresh pasta like this. I don’t have anything against dried, but in this case the firmness of the fresh pasta was perfect for the fall-apart ragù. A little good quality parmesan cheese across the top and you’re away.

I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but we drank a bottle of Jacob’s Creek cab sav with it. In my defence, I had to buy it at the supermarket, and it was the Reserve variety, which is much better than the usual stuff. And it cost US$25, which is more than enough for a night at home, and at the low-end for a drinkable wine in these parts. Sigh.

My winter didn’t last long though. The next day I made omelettes stuffed with fresh crab, coriander and a chilli-jam dressing. I can’t get over the fact that I can get the crab meat, freshly-cooked and picked, from the supermarket for less than the price of lamb.

And really, when the temperature is in the high thirties, who wants a heavy winter meal?

Home cooking

Smoker’s cough

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VerdantGreen

Oh, I get it.

With the advent of review sites like Urbanspoon and Yelp (in the US), you open the door to “professional” reviewers and casual diner/reviewers alike. What I don’t get is complaining about a restaurant experience on social media. What happened to speaking to someone at the venue?

On the other hand, raving about the latest place, because, well, it’s the latest place is equally annoying. In Melbourne the trend is for “south of the river” residents to brave the hipsters in the north to “find” that “undiscovered gem”. Really? You do realise the locals had been eating there for the last 12 months. They’re not anymore.

Wagyu. That’s my beef (pardon the pun).

Over the course of the last few years, we have seen a distinct swing to the use of wagyu beef, except at some fast food joints. But, I was under belief that the whole wagyu thing was that is extensively marbled with fat so that it is uber tender. At least that’s what I encountered with steaks in Japan. So, why is it that every pub, restaurant and burger joint (there are too many of these) is spruiking a wagyu burger? Last I checked ground/minced beef was tender, well, because it was ground/minced. Did I miss something?

Call me cynical, but I suspect this is so we can be charged $20+ for a wagyu burger which is comprised all of those cuts of meat which we just don’t really want to know about. I’m probably happier with a burger made from nice meat from any old bovine for half the price.

Ok, so hindsight is a pretty good thing. Should have considered things a little more last night. But it seemed like a damned fine idea at the time.

Rainbow

Take 1 x 750g rainbow trout (sadly it was farmed, not wild), clean, season and place on BBQ (not over heat) with smoker box full of hickory wood chips. Sounds pretty fine, yeah?

Ok, so taking the washing off the line beforehand would have been sensible.

smoked

Despite winter being upon us, I do so like firing the BBQ up drenched in sub-tropical, lush, verdant green foliage. Alright, it currently is a somewhat overgrown jungle.

You’ll be happy to know that the trout was sensational, if I do say so myself. Matched it was a warm middle eastern cous cous salad. Pretty easy, mix some sumac, cumin, ground coriander and fennel seeds with your cous cous and cook per normal. Sprinkle with some goats cheese, pomegranate seeds and chopped parsley.

couscoussalad

I know, a healthy meal. Even better with an aged (2009) Petaluma Riesling. So much goodness.

 

Eating Out, Home cooking, Travel

Back to basics

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tent

Hi Tony,

I can’t agree more. In fact, a container of frozen chicken stock has been pulled out to make some chicken and leek pies for tonight’s dinner.

We were so pleased to be invited to a great friend’s 30th birthday party on Saturday night. A trip back up to central Victoria, this time to Oxley (just down the road from Beechworth). “C”’s family have a beautiful property just out of town, where we pitched a tent and donned our “vintage ski gear”. My ski pants must have shrunk in storage…

The food put on for the party was a lesson in keeping it simple. Surrounded by some amazing producers in Oxley, it was a delight to see it celebrated. Local, Brown Brothers’ wines (I was particularly partial to the Prosecco and the Chardonnay), a locally cured leg of ham, a couple of cold smoked whole salmon, more Milawa cheese than I have seen in my life and to wrap things up, local Milawa Bakery salted cornbread rolls stuffed full of coleslaw and the most amazing slow cooked lamb. Melt in the mouth. Proof that if you start with great produce, treat it with the care and attention that it deserves, you simply can’t go wrong.

So, how do we city dwellers find such wonderful produce? That is the big question. Perhaps a trip up to somewhere like Oxley or Milawa for the occasional sourcing trip? The other option which seems to come to the fore from time to time is to buy straight from the producer and have it shipped. I haven’t tried this yet, but perhaps it is time.

No doubt there were some sore heads the following morning. A few passed our tent in the wee hours of Sunday morning. I must admit I had to stifle a chuckle when I heard “…I can’t feel my face…” upon passing. Pretty sure a breakfast roll with some re-warmed lamb would have fixed most of the ails.

We had to sneak way to get to Meredith’s birthday lunch on Sunday. A stop at the Oxley Take Away for breakfast, again, simple fresh eggs, local cured bacon on Milawa Bakery bread with some relish. Worthy.

Inspired, I’ve got a loaf of pasta dura proving. I know, it is a Tuesday night and already pushing 9pm but another 30 mins of proving and a hot, hot oven with some help from a water spray, and I will have a loaf of bread with crunchy crust crying out for some Beechworth Honey from our last visit. It’s not going to help my waistline, but oh so tasty.

We have a long weekend coming up. Me thinks that some time in the kitchen is a must.

Daniel

 

Home cooking

Stock and Awe

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stock

Hey Dan,

While you’re living high on the hog, I’m getting back to basics. After all the travel there’s a serious need to lose some weight, so the exercise has been ramped up, and the calories consumed reduced.

One favourite for the weight-loss diet is soup. It sates an appetite and can be healthy too, depending on the ingredients. Tonight it’s pea soup with mint, so that checks all the boxes.

But first, I need some stock.

A long, long time ago I gave up on store-bought stock or cubes. Convenient they may be, but typically an ingredient list looks like this: Wheat flour, salt, flavour enhancers (monosodium glutamate, disodium 5′-ribonucleotides), yeast extract, glucose syrup solids, chicken fat, potato starch, sugar, chicken extract, flavouring (contains celery), onion extract, colour (ammonia caramel). That’s from Oxo, but may as well be any of them.

So that’s flour, salt, sugar, fat and chemicals. Mmmmm, ammonia caramel: Just like Grandma used to make.

Really, I have no interest in eating something that sounds as though it was scraped off a vessel in a toilet cleaner factory.

So today’s stock day. Easy: A couple of chicken carcasses; some old chook bones saved from other meals and frozen; some celery; an onion; a couple of carrots; a few bay leaves; salt and pepper; water. Simmer for a few hours, skim, strain (remembering you’re reserving the liquid and not the solids – I absent-mindedly tipped the stock down the sink one day. Doh!).

Viola: chicken stock. No artificial ingredients, loads of flavour, and it costs a couple of dollars. I divide it into Ziplock bags in two-cup portions and freeze them, and one pot of stock lasts me for a month or two for soups or risottos or whatever.

There’s only one problem. While it’s simmering, the whole house fills with a superb chicken/bay leaf aroma and it is mouth-watering. It takes some serious self-restraint not to raid the fridge, and that would defeat the purpose somewhat.

Home cooking

Boy’s Menu

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Coconut cream

Hey Dan,

Looks as though you do nothing but eat out. Being the poorer sibling, I’m doing more home cooking, and am at the end of a two-week stint of fending for myself.

No big deal I hear you say, except I’m on the island, and that changes things.

For those who don’t know, it’s a remote island in the middle of nowhere, and my nearest food supplies are at least a 30-minute boat ride away. And I don’t own a boat. Needless to say it, but shopping is done once a week.

I know what you’re thinking – why not grow some food yourself? I do try, but between feral pigs and water buffalos (no kidding) it isn’t easy. I do have more coconuts than I know what to do with, so this week when I made a green chicken curry…I used some store-bought coconut cream. Have you ever made coconut cream? I have and I was pretty proud of myself too (I even took a photo, above) but it took forever, and didn’t taste that much better. Half an hour’s work and all that sweat? Really, just buy the stuff.

Anyway, because I’m effectively a bachelor, that means I don’t have the shopping rigour of my better half, who not only makes menu and ingredient lists, but actually consults them while in the shops. I’m the boy who goes to the store thinking I’d like to make a frittata and comes home with onions, potatoes, and capers (because we were out) but no eggs.

Worse. My mind always turns to the most complex things you can imagine: Twice-cooked pork belly (simmered for two hours, then char-grilled)? Yep. Did that. Though in my defence, it is still charred meat – the caveman is alive and well!

Even when I do map out a week’s menus, I’ll get to the day and decide I want something else instead.

In some ways it’s like being on one of those cooking shows: “Here are your ingredients: You have one hour!” Only I’d lose miserably, because I’d be “well the pork belly’s going to need another couple of hours” when they tell me to plate-up. Makes me wonder whether they’re only looking for short-order cooks, but that’s another story.

Anyway. The finite ingredients make me get a bit creative. Sometimes that’s good. I cooked some Asian-style chicken (that I’d never serve to an Asian friend, even though it was delicious), and tonight, getting towards the end of what’s in the fridge, it’s a Spanish-style omelet. Again, something I’d never serve to a Spaniard.

But it’s interesting that as Australians we feel free to experiment with other cuisines. I think that’s why there are so many really good Australian chefs. That said, you really need to master a traditional dish before you can feel free to modify it. Apparently Picasso said you need to “learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

I think there are too many chefs trying to run before they’ve learned to walk. My experimentation is more a matter of necessity, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t successes along the way. Come and visit and I’ll do the pork. It’s pretty sensational, though in retrospect I forgot one of its prime ingredients this time around. Ah well…