Snapper with Red Pepper Sauce with Been and Pumpkin Salad
Oh, and I really appologise for calling capsicum ‘red pepper’ but the name didn’t sound right otherwise.
Snapper with Red Pepper Sauce with
Been and Pumpkin Salad
Snapper with Red Pepper Sauce with Been and Pumpkin
Salad - Serves 4
2 red capsicums (peppers), sliced
½ a white onion, sliced
½ cup of white vinegar
½ cup of water
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 teaspoons of dried oregano
500 grams of green beans, topped and tailed
250 grams of pumpkin
2 fresh tomatoes, sliced and seeded
100 grams of sun-dried tomatoes, sliced
1 tomato, sliced and seeded
2 teaspoons of sesame seeds
4 snapper fillets
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil
Put capsicum, onion, vinegar, garlic, water a couple of the
sun-dried tomatoes and oregano in a saucepan and simmer on a very
low heat for 15 minutes or so. When the capsicum is very soft, mix
it up with a stick mixer until smooth. Keep the sauce warm until
you’re ready to serve (it makes a great pizza sauce too).
Steam the pumpkin until just tender, remove and steam the beans
until crisp. Mix in the remaining sun-dried tomatoes, sesame seeds
and a little olive oil.
Heat a grill to a medium-low temp and season the fish with salt and
pepper, drizzle with olive oil. When the grill is warm put the fish
under and grill for about 15 minutes, until the fish is firm to
touch but still moist.
Thyme for Some Nuts
Hot Roasted Hazelnuts with
Thyme
Hot Roasted Hazelnuts with Thyme - Makes 2
Cups
2 Cups of Hazelnuts
2 Tablespoons of fresh thyme
½ Tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
Heat the oven to 200ºC and roast the hazelnuts until brown, about
10-15 minutes. Keep checking so they don’t burn. When they’re done,
cover with a tea towel and let them steam and cool. Rub the skins
off and place in a frying pan. Turn up the heat and add the oil and
thyme and warm through.
Bunny and Lavender Tarts Smell Like Grandma, without the Pee
Bunny and Lavender Tarts Smell Like
Grandma
Bunny and Lavender Tartlet - Makes 40
Filling:
1 Bunny, quartered
2 Liters of Chicken Stock
2 Carrots, sliced
1 Onion, sliced
1 Parsnip, sliced
1 Celery stick, sliced
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of flour
2 teaspoons of dried lavender
Pastry:
250 grams, plain flour
200 grams, butter
120 mL, Sour Cream
Place the bunny, vegetables, stock and herbs in a large saucepan
and bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 1½ hours.
In a food processor blend the flour and butter until they form a
loose breadcrumb mixture and add the sour cream, just enough to
combine in to a smooth dough. Remove the dough, wrap in plastic and
put in the fridge to chill for at least a half hour.
When the bunny is tender, remove the meat from the bones and some
of the vegetables and allow to cool. Keep the stock.
Melt the 2 tablespoons of butter for the filling in a clean
saucepan, add the flour and lavender and whisk to prevent it from
burning. After a few minutes, ladle in the stock slowly to form a
thick creamy sauce (you will need about 2 cups of the stock). Add
enough of the sauce to the bunny meat and vegetables to make a
moist but not too wet or sloppy pie filling.
To make the pastry cases, pre-heat your oven to 200ºC and lightly
grease a mini-muffin tin. Roll out the pastry to a very thin round
and with a small glass or pastry cutter, cut rounds and slip them
into the muffin cups ensuring that there is no air beneath the
pastry, lightly prick it all over. Fill the tray and bake for 15
minutes until the pastry has puffed and the edges are golden. When
you take them out of the oven, if the bases have risen too much
press them back down with a tea-towel covered thumb or any other
suitable kitchen instrument. Allow the cases to cool and remove
from the muffin tray. These can be made 2 days in advance and kept
in an air-tight container.
Clean out the food processor and add the rabbit and vegetables and
process until a relatively smooth paste is formed. Reheat and spoon
into the pastry cases just before serving. Sprinkle with extra
lavender.
White-trash white-bait
I was expecting something a lot more like a pancake with little tiny fish heads sticking out perfectly crispy waiting for me to cunch. What I got was little brown deep fried sea-poops on a soggy salad. Although, the beetroot relish on top was just delicious. There are plenty of better whitebait fritter recipes out there.
What’s going on at The Union? This place used to be known for it’s top class pub food. The last time I ordered fish here it was obviously a frozen fish fillet because it was still hard and cold in the centre. Their regular menu is rock solid - I guess it must just be the specials.
Little brown sea-poos with beetroot
relish
Food, 6/10 - Good but
the standards are slipping
Service, 8/10 - Can’t complain here
Coffee, 0/10 - There is an espresso machine, but
this is a pub. Have a beer
Value, 6.5/10 - Pricey for pub food but better
than the competition
Location, 9/10 - Full of good intentioned
locals
Psychedelic Parsley Hummus
Parsley Hummus
Parsley Hummus -
Makes 2 cups
1 clove of garlic
½ cup of parsley leaves, packed
1 tin of chickpeas
¼ cup of sour cream
3 tablespoons of tahini (ground sesame seeds)
2 tablespoons of sesame seed oil
1½ teaspoons of lemon zest
1½ teaspoons of ground cumin
1½ teaspoons of sea salt
¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper (I subbed tabasco)
Put everything in a food processor, blend until smooth.
A Splash in the Mediterranean
Splash @ 226 King Street,
Newtown
Now while the decor of the restaurant
is a fairly dark but modern I can’t help but feel that this is a
second home to those who work here with little touches making it
feel more like someone’s living room - the framed boxing
memorabilia coming from the eldest son and the bright sea-life
painting coming from his mother insisting “these will look lovely.”
The feel of being in someone else’s house is reinforced with the
clumsy but well intentioned younger sister waitress, the always
looking busy but not really older sister waitress, then there’s the
eldest muscle bound pony-tailed brother who sits intimidatingly
behind the bar only to rush off outside or to the kitchen every
time his mobile phone beeps or rings. I always got the feeling that
I was imposing being there and even more so when I asked for
another drink.
At least the food was good quality with more than a substantial
serving, three people or two hungrier people than us could have
finished it with a bit more effort, we struggled to get through
half of the a pile of chips, bbq baby octopus, pickled octopus,
lightly battered and fried prawns, cold cooked prawns, fresh
oysters, scallop mornay, smoked salmon and the whole crab. We
didn’t even touch the salad.
Hot and Cold Seafood Plater for Two @
Splash Newtown
Food, 6.5/10 - Everything was there, but it wasn’t
original by any means
Service, 5/10 - I felt like I was imposing on them
being there, it seemed everyone had better things to do
Value, 7/10 - For what we got, the $100 bill was
fair for quality seafood in Sydney
Location, 9/10 - Heart of King Street
WTF is Oxtail
They are more often than not sold as individual sections of bone with their surrounding meat. If you do happen to get a whole one you can feel along for a the gap between the bone and cut there. As far as cooking it, think of how you’d cook a lamb shank - long and slow and good for the base of a stock or stew. There isn’t usually much meat on these things as the tail of most animals is used to store fat but if you’re served a piece you’ve really got to pick them up and chew off the meat.
For something a little different, you can try making a paté
Oxtail Paté
Oxtail
Paté - Makes 2 cups
1kg of oxtail
1T of olive oil
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves, ground
10 juniper berries, crushed
1 bay leaf
Pre-heat your oven to 160ºC. Toss all of the ingredients together
and roast for 6+ hours until a skewer pierces the meat without
resistence.
Take the roasting tray out and pick over the bones, removing the
large pieces of fat and placing the meat into a food processor.
Discard the bones. Remove the bay leaf and add everything else to
the food processor. Blend until the meat becomes fine, but not a
pureé.
Pack the paté into a dish suitable for serving in and cover in
plastic wrap. It can be keept for up to a week refridgerated.
La Cachette
After I got back from the meeting I headed off to the Victoria’s Basement outlet in Alexandria with a pit-stop at a little café I’d spotted once before that seemed a little odd out on it’s own on an otherwise desolate strip of Mitchell Road.
I took a gamble and went for the salmon egg benedict roll, an unusual presentation in itself but buoyed by the fact that it looked delicious. Tasted good too! The only thing I was annoyed with was the poached egg was hard, not runny at all - but then, given that it was obviously meant to be eaten by people with a well defined palate with out any time it made sense. I won’t mind stopping in again one weekend and picking up a quiche or something else to see how that goes. Stay tuned.
Salmon Egg Benedict Roll @ La Cachette Alexandria
With the exception of the coffee (burnt and bitter, what a surprise
there), I was pleasantly surprised. Stop by if you’re going past
the area and peckish.
Food, 7/10 - Better than you’d expect
for what looks like a workman’s lunch-bar
Service, 4/10 - The girl was training and seemed
lost
Coffee, 0/10 - It was undrinkable
Value, 6.5/10 - $10.50 for a brea-roll and a
coffee, but what a bread-roll
Location, 4/10 - In the middle of
nowhere
Fried Wild Rice with Crispy Duck
0900 Breakfast with Puppet
1100 Orthopantograph (full mouth dental x-ray)
1200 Optometrists Appointment
1400 Meeting with new employer
1530 Pick up remaining belongings from existing employer
1600 Pick up washing from laundromat
1700 Hardware store - new light bulbs
1730 Clean kitchen
1900 Cook dinner
2000 Clean kitchen again
2030 Blog about dinner
So with that schedule, I wanted something quick and easy for dinner and with left over crispy skinned duck in the fridge and a packet of wild rice in the cupboard a jazzed up fried rice was great choice. Simple and easy and best of all, using those little bits of stuff you’ve got laying around.
Fried Wild Rice with Crispy
Duck
Fried
Wild Rice with Crispy Duck -
Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side
2 eggs
2 cups of wild rice
2 cups of cooked duck, shredded
4 rashers of bacon, diced
½ cup frozen stir-fry veg (or peas, carrots, corn etc diced)
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
1 star anise (optional)
Whisk the eggs together and fry in a wok, swirling around to create
a thin omelette. Turn the omelette out and dice.
Cook the rice and leave to cool.
Fry the spices, duck and bacon until the bacon is crispy, add the
vegetables and fry until almost cooked and add the rice. Fry until
the rice is loose and not clumping any more, add the egg and heat
through. Serve.