The point of the trip to New Zealand this year was to celebrate my mother's 50th birthday, so while my Aunts little monkeys were at school we took a trip out to one of NZ's top rated wineries, Mills Reef, in the Bay of Plenty region not far from Tauranga in the town of Bethlehem.

Mills Reef is hardly a stable but if the attitude of the staff on the restaurant is anything to go by then jebus himself was born here and it was our privilege to be on sacred ground but more on that in a minute. Going along Moffat Road and seeing the grounds appear before you is impressive with manicured lawns and rows of trees all leading up to the main building and it's own formal gardens but this is a working site. All of the processing, bottling and distribution happen here even though all of the grapes are bought and shipped from the not so far away Hawks Bay.

As you walk up from the car park the first door on the left is the tasting room so we went there first. As a tip for those visiting a winery with it's own restaurant, here's a good place to try a sip of a few things before you try and match them to your lunch and give you a chance to mull over which bottles you pick up.

Mills Reef Winery, 143 Moffat Road, Bethlahem New Zealand

In the tasting room we met Ken, the cellar manager who ever so patiently walked my family through not only their range but the tasting process (lightest and brightest to heaviest and darkest). From what I could tell all of the prices for the wine were quite reasonable where as the souvenirs had souvenir prices.

After a few uhms and ahs we took a price list and headed for the empty restaurant. There was a choice of the outdoor terrace or inside a dining/function room. The enormous main dining room was having the air-conditioning replaced before summer. Not to worry because ir was spring after all and we chose a table on the terrace in the shade. Just like everyone else did but being outside the noise wasn't an issue and the tables were well spaced anyway. After the stop-off in the tasting room I picked my entrée and main based on their recommended wines and everyone else chose the recommended glass. I wanted to see how they stood up to good quality food and thankfully what came out of the kitchen was great. Luckily I was really only interest in their red wine because the restaurants fish order hadn't arrived to meet the demand of their predominantly fish based menu.

Going around the table my mother had their seafood trio and the Pinot Gris, a slight alteration due to the lack of fish she had a king prawn, scallops and a piece of salmon; my brother had the oysters and my aunt had the bread and dukka which surprised me. For such a simple sounding entrée the chef added a bit of flair throwing in a couple of different types of cibatta and more than just a simple dukka, there was some great avocado oil, tapenade and homemade pesto too. I had the chicken liver paté with truffles crostini and the Cab Melot, or at least that's what I ordered. Instead I got garlic crostini that worked very well and I wouldn't have had any complaints if only I hadn't ordered truffles. That and if I didn't have to wait 10 minutes and actually need to get up from by seat, walk through a construction site and find the wait staff and ask them for our wine. Even though there were a few people in the restaurant by that stage I find it hard to believe a winery restaurant forgot to bring the wine.


Seafood Trio - Prawn, Salmon and Scallop


Cibatta with Dukka, Avocado Oil, Tapenade and Pesto


Chicken Liver and Cognac Paté and Fig Jam with Garlic Crostini

Main course ran smoother, Mum had the strawberry and asparagus salad with Kaimai Brie and a glass of the Sav Blanc which was tasty and exploration in vegetarian texture more than flavour, my brother had two giant lamb shanks that were cut above the knee and were so tender the meat would have literally fallen off the bone if he'd picked it up washed down with the Cab Sav. The meat was good quality lamb but seemed a little bland on it's own and relied in the jus to carry it. Mind you I only picked at his leftovers, so the most of the meat could have been fine. My Aunts Cajun chicken Caesar salad was generous, well seasoned. I had the lamb fillet that was cooked to a perfect pink with a blue cheese and pear salad with a walderberry jus, much like my favourite duck salad. The lamb itself seemed under seasoned but balanced out with some cracked pepper and the jus. The Merlot Malbec was a perfect match.


Asparagus, Strawberry, Avocado and Kaimai Brie


Warm Lamb Fillet, Watercress and Baby Spinach Salad with Pear, Cashew, Kikorangi Blue and Walderberry Syrup


Lamb Shanks Braised with Wholegrain Mustard on Green Pea and Potato Mash

Dessert. Only mother and I had dessert, her with the mandarin and cinnamon spring rolls which looked delicious and I had the 'ode to the lemon' which was a set of three lemon desserts starting with a lemon curd in a bitter chocolate case the size of a patty-pan, a lemon cremé brûlée in an espresso cup and a scoop of lemon ice cream in a parfait glass. All of which matched brilliantly in their own way to the riesling ice wine. If only it was delivered with the course. As the waitress walked off I called out "um, and our wine?" She flicked her nose up and walked off in acknowledgement. I waited. I waited. Again I got up and asked for my wine yet again. The excuse was they were waiting for the others coffee to be made before they bought out all of the drinks. Pity my ice cream had melted and my crem brule was cold by the time it arrived.

The location, food and wine at Mills Reef are nothing to complain about but the attitude and service of the restaurant wait staff really left more a lot to be desired.


Nectarine and Honey Spring Rolls rolled in Cinnamon Sugar served with Blueberry Syrup and Vanilla Ice Cream


Burnt Lemon Curd, Lemon Crem Brule and Lemon Ice Cream

Tags:Salad, Chicken, Lamb, Lamb Shanks, Paté, Prawns, Scallops, Lemon, Ice Cream, New Zealand, Wine, Review, Restaurant, Travel

Saturday in Sydney was a beautifully sunny day and I got to spend it all locked in a room with out windows doing my day job. So as the sun was setting I wandered across the harbour bridge and off to David Jones. After wandering around a while I settled on a snapper and a bottle of champagne (or two).

Once I got home though, I couldn’t really be bothered doing anything except drink the champagne. Sunday night I still wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with the snapper so I decided to tea smoke it and make a large single serve vol au vent. It was surprisingly easy and tasted pretty damn good. Much better than those vol au vents your mum used to make at dinner parties in the 80’s and early 90’s!

Smoked snapper vol au vent

Smoked Snapper Vol Au Vents - Serves 2
1 whole fresh snapper
1 tablespoon of black peppercorns
1 tablespoon of cardamom pods (crushed)
1 fresh bay leaf
1 cup sugar
1 cup of salt
1 cup of white rice
1 cup of black tea
1 sheet of short crust pastry
1 cup of stock (I used rabbit, but vegetable, chicken or fish would be ok)
1 tablespoon of corn flour
1 tablespoon of fresh cut parsley

Place the snapper, pepper, cardamom, bay leaf and half of the salt and sugar in a plastic container and cover with water. Leave for two hours (6 in the fridge). Take the fish out and let it air dry for a while or pat it dry with some paper towel.

Line a roasting tin that you have a rack and a lid with foil. Mix the rest of the salt and sugar with the rice and tea and pour evenly into the foil. Place the tin over a low heat (preferably with a simmer mat) and heat until it starts to smoke. Place the fish on the rack, the rack on the rice and the lid on the tin (get all that? Good). Leave for an hour and turn the heat off but do not remove the lid.

Once the whole lot has cooled, take the lid off and start to flake the flesh off the snapper trying to keep the bones out of the mix.

Heat your oven to 180ºC and cut two circles out of the short crust pastry and rings out of the puff pastry, the same diameter as the short crust circles. Place the two pastry stacks on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes or until the pastry rings have risen.

Boil the stock and add the corn flour, whisking constantly until it has thickened. Add the fish and re-heat gently so to not break the fish up further. Stir through the parsley then taste for seasoning and then spoon into the vol au vent cases.

Tags:Smoked Salmon, Smoked, Snapper, Vol Au Vent, Fish, Review, David Jones

I don't think anyone ever really, or vary rarely, plans to go to a specific restaurant in Newtown (save the one or two places where you actually have to book). Everyone else just wanders up and down King Street soaking up the atmosphere until they see something that catches their eye like a heaving plate of prawns or a luscious piece of beef being served to someone else through the window.
So after meeting some wonderful company at the station we began walking up the eastern side of King Street until we started to realise that we were almost of restaurants. Just at that point we were standing next to The Dumpling King (194 King Street, Newtown). Declaring my love for dumplings we headed in, sat down and went over the menu looking for some rare and tasty dumplings I'd never heard of before. Bitterly disappointed given the name of the place there were only four dumplings! Northern Meat Style, steamed or pan fried, and Vegetable Dumpling, steamed or pan fried. How can you call yourself the Dumpling King if you only have two types of dumplings?! We decided to order the shallot pancake and the meat bun and of course, both types of dumplings - steamed.
 

You won’t find many dumplings at The Dumpling King (194 King Street, Newtown)

Twenty minutes later the pancake (that I don't think had even met a shallot) arrived along with the pan fried flavourless northern meat buns. Chewing through those and washing them down with some weak green tea (from a bag) we sat and chatted. Pleasant and engaging conversation, thankfully, which made the next forty-five minutes waiting for our dumplings bearable.
Eventually, after physically getting up and asking the wait-staff that had ignored us since we ordered where the rest of our meal was, two steamer baskets turned up with an excuse that the Dumpling King had run out of dumplings and he had to make them fresh! Two things are wrong with that, one - the DUMPLING KING ran out of dumplings; and two - if he did have some on hand they wouldn't have been fresh! I know I'm probably arguing for two different sides here, do I want fresh dumplings or do I want quick service but that's not the point. We weren't the only table that didn't get their meals, I noticed two or three other tables having to stop the wait-staff and ask where their food was.
At the end of the night, I have to admit the dumplings were actually quite nice, but the experience was terrible with poor service and a promise of a plethora of dumplings that just don't exist. The rest of the menu looked quite uninspired and with the variety available on King Street I'm not going to be in any hurry to visit the illegitimate Dumpling King again. I'd rather go to Happy Chef.

Tags:Dumpling, Newtown, Review, Restaurant

Not that my Grandma (bless her) smells like pee or lavender but that soft lavender scent does spring to mind when you’re making these delicious tartlets. If you’ve never used lavender, you can use it anywhere in place of rosemary using half of the quantity of rosemary specified in the original recipe; it tastes like a softer more floral and sweet rosemary. You can take this recipe and either make little mini-muffin sized tartlets like these, larger individual pot pies, a large pie or just a sandwich spread (in which case don’t make the pastry).

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.

Tags:Bunny, Rabbit, Tart, Pie, Picnic, Housewarming, Herbs, Sandwich

Tonight saw me leave work at 7pm instead of my usual 5:15, meaning I couldn't be arsed cooking anything that involved more than 45 seconds worth of work. Enter Oeufs En Cototte. Nigella's introduction to the dish explains how her mother used to cook it for her as a child and is one she enjoys as a simple comfort food, and I have to agree. There is something about it that just seemed to calm me after a long stressful day at work. It was probably the simplicity coupled with the richness of an egg yoke and cream. It could have been the smoked salmon I added though!

Given I was making this for dinner, and that I don't own any ramekins, I made a fairly large one and it was just about the right size for a meal in itself, for a start her suggestion 1 egg per person would have been perfect. Come to think of it now, it would have been nifty in my espresso cups with some steamed asparagus.

Tags:Bread, Toast, Breakfast, Eggs, Nigella, Nigella Express, Nigella Lawson, Salmon, Smoked Salmon