Dec 2007
Qantas Club Lounge
So here I am, sitting in the domestic
Qantas Club lounge at
Sydney Airport waiting for my flight to Brisbane. Since it's only
midday the champagne premium Australian sparkling
wine isn't flowing, but the cold meat and relishes are. I
spotted a few little cakes and fresh cut fruit, a few automatic
espresso machines and an array of juices (I had tomato). Certainly
nothing to write home about but it sure beats sitting in a crowded
departure lounge with a thousand screaming babies and worse,
tourists. There certainly is an air of civilization. Is it the the
quiet chatter on the Qantas jet in Wallabies livery that
just taxied past the floor to ceiling windows, talk of the news in
Pakistan, the
Sydney To Hobart and Jetstar? Or
is it that every two minutes a well dressed young lady comes
through and clears the plates with unfinished ham sandwiches and
half drunken cappuccinos?
|
BBQ Prawns
26 Dec 2007 06:28 PM Cooked in:
Seafood
Following on from the Christmas Prawn Fest I've been
having over the past few days. Boxing Day has left me with 11 prawns
that were begging to be eaten. Simple enough to prepare, bend their
heads down so you can get to the vein running down their back, pull
that out and shove a bamboo skewer up them, a quick heat of the
bbq, four minutes each side (hopefully the picture will give you an
idea just how big these things were), some lemon, cocktail sauce
and we're done. They'd have been perfect for a prawn burger.
Fruit Mince Pie Ice Cream
25 Dec 2007 12:33 AM Cooked in:
Dessert
While I was at David Jones picking up
some Christmas prawns, I picked up
some fruit mince pies to go into dessert for dinner with Dave and
Gary on Christmas night. I spotted a nice sounding recipe in the
first edition of Delicious my
mum got me a subscription for. Some fruit mince pies and some good
vanilla ice cream was all that was needed, but me being me I
couldn't leave a good recipe alone so a quick batch of praline and
some chopped up Lindt dark chocolate into the mix and there we have
it. The best Christmas Ice Cream ever. The only thing that could
have made it better would be some Reindeer Dust to make you fly.
No recipe as such, just a half dozen chopped up mince pies mixed in with some store bought vanilla ice cream, optionally, some praline and chocolate.
No recipe as such, just a half dozen chopped up mince pies mixed in with some store bought vanilla ice cream, optionally, some praline and chocolate.
Crumbed Prawns
24 Dec 2007 07:20 PM Cooked in:
Seafood
Christmas in Australia is not a roast
turkey affair. Sure some nutters throw caution to the
non-airconditioned wind and roast a giant turkey with all the
trimmings (never again, not with out the air-conditioning anyway).
The majority of antipodean Christmas fare tends to be seafood and
cold meats like ham. Today alone 700 tonnes
of seafood were sold at the Sydney Fish Markets.
I did manage to pick up 1 kg of green king prawns at the David Jones food hall. The first of these giant crustaceans (each were a good 7-8" head to tail) went to Jamie Oliver's crumbed prawn recipe from Cook with Jamie. Simply crumbed and oven baked for 10 minutes and served with sea salt and a drizzle of lemon. Delicious.
I did manage to pick up 1 kg of green king prawns at the David Jones food hall. The first of these giant crustaceans (each were a good 7-8" head to tail) went to Jamie Oliver's crumbed prawn recipe from Cook with Jamie. Simply crumbed and oven baked for 10 minutes and served with sea salt and a drizzle of lemon. Delicious.
Hilton Sydney Room Service - Part 2
The cheese platter was washed down by another gin and tonic or three, and since I'd anticipated luxurious room service all day I skipped lunch and my stomach was rumbling. Browsing through the lengthy room service menu I finally settled on the "3 mini-burgers" and some buffalo wings.
The 3 mini burgers were the highlight, but nothing outstanding. It was a nice concept and worked well visually, the problem though was that other than the beef patty, lamb patty and chicken tenderloin on each burger, the rest were identical, a slice of tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise. They relied too heavily on the meat. When your concept is to have three individual burgers, you'd expect you'd do something so each one stood out individually? It would have been an easy fix, some caramelized onion on the beef, a dab or tzatziki instead of the mayo on the lamb, and perhaps some chili on the chicken?
As for the buffalo wings, they hardly rate a mention. They were warm and had a crispy skin with paprika and basic spices.
Breakfast the following morning was back in the club lounge and was equally disappointing as the canapes the night before. Just the stock standard sliced fruit, juices and cereals on the cold side of the buffet and on the warm there was just bacon, hash browns, sausages, scrambled eggs and grilled tomatoes. Individually everything was nice enough, but it certainly didn't hold a torch to the Sofitel Melbourne's breakfast buffet, they even had pancakes!
Hilton Sydney Room Service - Part 1
Recently I had a bit of bad week, I
won't get in to it but the gist is that I had to start cooking for
one again... So to cheer myself up I threw caution to the wind and
booked myself into a 'Relaxation Suite' in the Hilton Sydney and
bought a bottle of Bombay Sapphire to keep me company. The room was
brilliant, particularly the enormous bed and the double spa bath
with floor to ceiling window and a 26" LCD screen!
But this is a food blog.
Since I was in a suite I had access to the club lounge and complimentary pre-dinner drinks and canapes. Free gin always gets thumbs up as far as I'm concerned, but I'd need more than the couple I had to distract from what they tried to pass off as food. There wasn't anything you wouldn't have found in the freezer section of your local supermarket and with absolutely no attempt at masking that it came from one. I held higher hopes for the room service I was going to order later.
A quick call to room service after the stodge in the club lounge I'd ordered a cheese platter. For about $20 it was a lot better than I expected, the standard cheeses, blue, camembert and cheddar were accounted for along with a good selection of bready things to put the cheese on, wafers, grissini sticks and a few others. What made this so nice were the quality accoutrements. Fresh strawberries, dried apricots, muscatels and dried figs! My favorite.
As for the main meal, we'll get to that next.
But this is a food blog.
Since I was in a suite I had access to the club lounge and complimentary pre-dinner drinks and canapes. Free gin always gets thumbs up as far as I'm concerned, but I'd need more than the couple I had to distract from what they tried to pass off as food. There wasn't anything you wouldn't have found in the freezer section of your local supermarket and with absolutely no attempt at masking that it came from one. I held higher hopes for the room service I was going to order later.
A quick call to room service after the stodge in the club lounge I'd ordered a cheese platter. For about $20 it was a lot better than I expected, the standard cheeses, blue, camembert and cheddar were accounted for along with a good selection of bready things to put the cheese on, wafers, grissini sticks and a few others. What made this so nice were the quality accoutrements. Fresh strawberries, dried apricots, muscatels and dried figs! My favorite.
As for the main meal, we'll get to that next.
Thai Fish Soup
I’ve never been that keen on Thai
food, mind you I’ve had limited exposure to it and what I have was
probably not particularly authentic, however last night I had a
craving for something spicy and with fish. After flicking through
some recipes I came across a nice picture of what was titled a fish
curry, although it looked much more like a soup so I made some
changes to the recipe and came up with this.
On the whole it was nice, but lacked something. Monkey put his finger on it. More seafood. Prawns would have been ideal and some coriander for garnish. Next time…
Thai Fish Soup **
500mls Vegetable Stock
1 Cup of assorted chopped Asian themed vegetables (baby corn, bean sprouts, water chestnuts) – I used frozen packet vegetables
2tsp Dried Chilli Flakes
1tsp lemon grass, minced
1tsp ginger, minced
1tsp garlic, minced
Fish sauce, to taste
Palm sugar, to taste
300grams of salmon filet, cubed
300grams of green prawns, shelled and de-veined
Picked coriander leaves for garnish
Bring the vegetable stock to the boil, add the remainder of the ingredients except for the salmon and bring to the boil and simmer until the vegetables are almost ready.
Add the salmon and prawns and simmer for 5 minutes until both are pink. Serve in small bowls with coriander as garnish.
PS** Is it poor food-blog etiquette to post a recipe with alterations to the one you’ve actually cooked and posted a picture of? In this case, the addition of prawns and coriander.
On the whole it was nice, but lacked something. Monkey put his finger on it. More seafood. Prawns would have been ideal and some coriander for garnish. Next time…
Thai Fish Soup **
500mls Vegetable Stock
1 Cup of assorted chopped Asian themed vegetables (baby corn, bean sprouts, water chestnuts) – I used frozen packet vegetables
2tsp Dried Chilli Flakes
1tsp lemon grass, minced
1tsp ginger, minced
1tsp garlic, minced
Fish sauce, to taste
Palm sugar, to taste
300grams of salmon filet, cubed
300grams of green prawns, shelled and de-veined
Picked coriander leaves for garnish
Bring the vegetable stock to the boil, add the remainder of the ingredients except for the salmon and bring to the boil and simmer until the vegetables are almost ready.
Add the salmon and prawns and simmer for 5 minutes until both are pink. Serve in small bowls with coriander as garnish.
PS** Is it poor food-blog etiquette to post a recipe with alterations to the one you’ve actually cooked and posted a picture of? In this case, the addition of prawns and coriander.
Pork Sausages with Roased Tomatoes, Capsicum and Fennel with Cannellini Beans
Despite not really liking the term
“gourmet sausages” I really like them. Sausages in general are a
bit of a comfort food for me I suppose, the child hood memories of
Toad in the Hole with thick brown onion gravy. Classic English
stodge right there that is.
The quality of supermarket sausages is generally pretty poor so I try not to buy them unless I have no choice. Who want’s a monochrome pink paste that’s supposed to be pork? I try and get to the David Jones food hall for they’re excellent selection of high quality classics to more unusual blends. The Duck Pear and Cognac is a favourite. Last night however, I had to get what I could form the supermarket and ended up with what were labelled as “Pepperberry and Garlic” and assuming pork.
What a surprise. No pink monochrome paste and a good blend of herbs. These were really quite nice sausages. The idea was to make pork sausages with tomato sauce and cannellini beans, but given what I originally suspected were going to be bland sausages I picked up a fennel bulb and a red capsicum (bell pepper) and roasted them all for an hour with olive oil, salt pepper and rosemary before I diced and mushed them together to go with the beans and sausages. It turned out to be an excellent combination, although it could have used a bit of a chilli kick.
The quality of supermarket sausages is generally pretty poor so I try not to buy them unless I have no choice. Who want’s a monochrome pink paste that’s supposed to be pork? I try and get to the David Jones food hall for they’re excellent selection of high quality classics to more unusual blends. The Duck Pear and Cognac is a favourite. Last night however, I had to get what I could form the supermarket and ended up with what were labelled as “Pepperberry and Garlic” and assuming pork.
What a surprise. No pink monochrome paste and a good blend of herbs. These were really quite nice sausages. The idea was to make pork sausages with tomato sauce and cannellini beans, but given what I originally suspected were going to be bland sausages I picked up a fennel bulb and a red capsicum (bell pepper) and roasted them all for an hour with olive oil, salt pepper and rosemary before I diced and mushed them together to go with the beans and sausages. It turned out to be an excellent combination, although it could have used a bit of a chilli kick.