Brioche Pudding with Dried Figs
This was meant to just have cherries in it but I forgot to get them that day so I rummaged around the the cupboard and cheated a little with a packet of Whisk & Pin dried fruit compote that was mostly figs which I love so hey, figs it was! They worked really well if I do say so myself.
Brioche Pudding with Dried
Figs
Orange Stuffed Chicken Marylands with 5-Spiced Carrots and Beans
Orange Stuffed Chicken Marylands with
5-Spiced Carrots and Beans
Mixed Berry Jellies and Vanilla Ice Cream
Even better, it is very easy to make, can be made days in advance and you’ve probably got everything in the cupboard anyway.
Mixed Berry Jellies and Vanilla Ice Cream -
Serves 4
1 packet of flavoured jelly crystals (any berry or even
port-wine)
1 packet of frozen berries, thawed (any, or a mix)
Ice Cream
Make jelly as per packet instructions. Put in fridge and chill for
an hour and a half or until the mix is quite thick but not set.
Stir in berries.
If the berries do sink to the bottom before it sets, or you forget
the jelly in the fridge before adding them place the moulds in a
sink and add hot water until it comes half way up the sides. The
jelly will soften enough so you can add the berries or stir them
through again.
Leave to set then serve with ice cream.
Spiced Lamb Pistachio and Beetroot Salad with Orange Dressing
Spiced Lamb with Pistachio and
Beetroot Salad with Orange Dressing
The lamb itself was tender and cooked to just pink with a brilliant
sumac based spice rub and the orange and honey in the dressing
balanced out the beetroot. A bit of cumin in the dressing tied it
in with the lamb and a bit of honey did the same for the
yoghurt.
Spiced Lamb
Pistachio - Serves 2
2 lamb back-straps
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons of olive oil
½ tablespoon of coriander seeds
1½ tabelspoon of cumin seeds
1½ tabelspoon of allspice
2 tabelspoon of sumac
¼ cup of shelled pistachios, crushed
Mint Yoghurt
½ cup of yoghurt
1 tabelspoon of finely sliced mint leaves
½ tabelspoon of honey
Beetroot Salad with Orange Dressing
1 beetroot, diced
1 potato, diced
½ cup of grated carrot
½ tabelspoon of fresh ground cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of orange zest
juice of 1 orange
½ tabelspoon of honey
2 handfuls of salad leaves
Starting with the beetroot salad; steam the beetroot for about an
30-45 minutes or until it’s fairly tender but still has a bit of
resistance. Add the potato and carrot and continue to steam until
all is tender and the tip of a knife has no resistance left to it.
Toss through the salad leaves and put aside until serving. Mix the
remaining salad ingredients into a bowl for the dressing.
For the mint yoghurt, mix it all together. Put aside until
serving.
Lamb. Toss the lamb, garlic and oil together and stand to marinade
for two hours. Grind and mix the spices together. Once the lamb has
marinaded for the set time, rub the spice mix all over the meat and
fry or bbq on medium-high for 5 minutes each side. Take the lamb
off the heat and wrap in foil for 8-10 minutes to rest.
Dress and plate the salad. Slice the lamb back-strap on the
diagonal and plate. Sprinkle with the pistachios and drizzle around
the mint yoghurt.
The Daily Grind @ The Peppermill Cafe
Peppermill Café, Milsons
Point
At a recent contract I went out myself and failed miserably picking
the Kirribilli Village Café and Restaurant. I tried their steak
sandwich and it was just awful, chewy, tasteless and very
overpriced. $25 off for the sandwich and a coffee. That’s when I
asked. The team I was working with and I went around the corner to
The Peppermill Café in Milsons
Point, their coffee is a little to be desired considering it’s
Campos Coffee, but it
almost always seemed burnt but the service and food was always
pretty good.
The first day I went I was recommended their regular special, a
chicken and leek pie. Not what I expected in the presentation
department but it was tasty. An individual baking dish with mashed
potato on the bottom, a regular chicken and leek filling and a
square of golden puff pastry balanced across the top. Almost every
day since then I went to Peppermill for either lunch or breakfast,
often for both. When I had breakfast, brunch, or afternoon tea, I’d
pick up a smoked salmon, ricotta and avocado croissant, the
combination of the soft buttery pastry and the oily smokiness of
the salmon was a winner.
Smoked Salmon Croissant @ Peppermill
Café, Milsons Point
They serve an all day breakfast here,
and the majority of the menu was based around breakfast but almost
as often as I’d see someone have a burger I saw someone else have
either the pancakes or french toast, both served with either bacon
and maple syrup or a mixed berry compote. Delicious stuff and well
worth a try if you want a bit of extra energy before hitting either
the Kirribilli or North Sydney Markets one weekend (I worked
weekends too). The beef burger is nice, standard fare, but the
chicken burger was the winner, chicken, bacon, avocado. Damn
tasty.
It’s also licensed and they won’t pass judgement if you have a
Bloody Mary on a Monday!
Chicken & Bacon Burger @
Peppermill Café, Milsons Point
The Peppermill Café
30 Glenn Street, Milsons Point (map)
Monday to Friday 7am to 6pm
Saturday and Sunday 8am - 4pm
T: (02) 9954 1444
F: (02) 9954 1444
www.thepeppermillcafe.com.au
For once, I had a healthy breakfast
The texture of this was pretty interesting with the soft succulant fruit and sticky honey and the chewy turkish bread and it’s carbonised toasted edges it made of a quite satisfying meal. It just goes to show that simple fresh fruit is really worth while.
Turkish toast with banana and
strawberries, honey and mint
Perfect Porridge from ilseum
ilesum Porridge
I asked the hot guy what it was like and he said he’d not tried the
porridge yet but likes the ‘sweetly toasted’ variation of muslie -
slow roasted oats, almonds, saltanas and honey.
The porridge is quite nice, surprisingly light in flavour for
something that’s traditionally seen as very heavy. It’s probably
got something to do with the great variety of fruit mixed in with
currants, granny smith apples, cavendish bananas, nectarines, mini
golden raisins, saultanas and peaches. Having said that though, it
was a little light on the fruit for what I was expecting. It still
needed a bit of cinnamon across the top and a bit of added sugar or
honey across the top.
Oatmeal and Blueberry Cookies
Not long afterwards they invited me to their house for dinner to meet some of the other people from the street. It was a dinner party, a real dinner party with linen table cloths, napkins and the good silver.
Oatmeal and Blueberry Cookies
As a thank-you I thought I’d make a
small batch of cookies for them, but what? They had to be
wholesome, they were a gift for a neighbor afterall and you can’t
get any more wholesome than oatmeal cookies but of course I had to
jazz it up a little. Forget the raisins. Blueberries were the go! I
was going to use dried cherries but I couldn’t find them anywhere.
Of course the week after I found them at David Jones.
To give them a bit of extra depth you don’t usually find in oatmeal
cookies I used rolled oats and rolled rye that have an earthier
flavour that isn’t overpowering. If you cant find or cant be
bothered, just use all oat.
Oatmeal and Blueberry
Cookies - makes 24
150
grams unsalted butter, softened
⅓ cup of brown sugar
⅓ castor sugar
1 large egg
¾ cups of rolled oats
¾ cups of rolled rye
¾ cups of flour
1 teaspoon of bicarb
½ teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 cups of dried blueberries (or any other dried fruit)
Preheat your oven to 200ºC. Beat together the butter and sugars
until they are light and fluffy. It won’t be as pale as regular
creamed butter and sugar because of the brown sugar so don’t worry
about that. On a lower speed, add the egg and vanilla. Sift the
flour and mix in the dry ingredients.
When well combined, but not over mixed, place dessert spoonfuls of
the mix on a greased or properly lined baking tray about 4 or 5 cm
apart. Learn from my mistake - if you use cookie sheets be prepared
for the excess butter melting out of the cookies and going all over
the place!
If you’ve got an even temp oven, bake two sheets at a time for 12
minutes. Mine isn’t so good so I did 1 sheet at a time checking
after 10 min and rotating the tray.
Crispy Skinned Orange Duck al la Kylie Kwong
It was a bit of a nightmare getting to make this, I went to eight different places to find a whole duck and twice as many to find either blood plums or blood oranges. I ended up settling for standard oranges and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening wondering if the dish would still retain it’s quintessential tastiness. Luck won with a not as sweet, but with a nice piquancy the original blood plums didn’t have.
Orange Crispy Skinned Duck
Crispy Skinned Orange Duck - Serves 2
1 whole duck, approx. 1.5kg
1 tablespoons of sichuan pepper
3 tablespoons of sea salt
¼ cup plain flour
vegetable oil for frying
1 cup of water
1 cup of white sugar
250 grams of oranges, juiced (or blood plums)
⅔
cups of fish sauce
6 whole star anise
2 cinnamon quills
⅓ cups of lime juice
Trim away the excess fat from the cavity of the duck. Grind the
sichuan pepper and salt together and then rub all over the duck.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Boil some water in a wok or large saucepan and place a steamer
basket over, the duck inside, cover and leave for an hour and a
half. Take the now cooked duck out and leave it to cool.
Once the duck is cold enough to handle, slice it in half
lengthwise, from neck to tail. Gently pry the carcass out, leaving
the drumstick and wings intact. Cut each half into half again so
you have a wing and a leg piece.
To make the sauce, mix the water, sugar, oranges together and bring
to the boil in a saucepan, reduce the heat to a simmer and add the
fish sauce, star anise, cinnamon and lime juice. Simmer while you
fry the duck.
Heat the vegetable oil a wok or deep saucepan, cover the duck
pieces with flour and deep fry each piece separately until the skin
has gone a crisp golden colour. Drain the pieces after they’ve
cooked on paper towel. When their all cooked, cut the duck down
into bite-sized pieces, except for the bones.
Pile the duck on a serving platter and pour over enough sauce to
coat the duck.
Eat it with your hands and have a bowl of rice on the
side.
Duck with Roast Fennel and Berry Sauce
Duck with Roast Fennel and Berry
Sauce
Duck with Roast Fennel and Berry Sauce -
Serves 2
2 duck marylands
2 sprigs of rosemary
1 tablespoon of salt
1 fennel bulb
1 zucchini
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Salt and Pepper
¼ cup of frozen berries
In a mortar and pestle grind the salt and rosemary until they’re
mixed well. Coat the duck marylands well and leave to sit lightly
covered with plastic wrap until it’s ready to cook.
Pre-heat the oven to 160ºC. Slice the zucchini in half and the
fennel into 5mm slices. Drizzel with olive oil and season with salt
and pepper and spread out on a roasting tray and roast in the oven
until the fennel is soft.
After the fennel has been in the oven for about 30 minutes, add a
little olive oil to a frying pan at medium heat. Add the duck skin
side down and fry until golden, turn over and fry until the other
side is golden. Finish the duck in the frying pan in the oven for
15 minutes.
Take the duck out of the oven and rest. While the duck is resting,
add the berries to the frying pan and simmer until reduced. Strain
out any pips. Put the veggies on the plate, then the duck and spoon
over the berry sauce.
Roast Pork Loin with Dried Fruit
Roast Pork Loin with Dried
Fruit
Roast Pork Loin with Dried Fruit - Serves
4-6
1kg pork loin
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 large shallots, chopped
¾ cup diced dried apples
½ cup dried cranberries
½ cup dried mixed berries
¼ cup dried wild figs
1½ cups low-salt chicken stock
½ cup dry white wine
Preheat oven to 220°C. Sprinkle pork with rosemary, salt, and
pepper.
Place pork in the oven and roast for 20 minutes. Lower the
temprature to 170ºC and continue to roast until thermometer
inserted into center registers 65°C to 75°C, about another 35-45
minutes. Transfer pork to platter; let stand 10 minutes.
Add apples, figs, cranberries and berries to the pan with the wine
and stock.; stir until fruit mixture is heated through, boil 1
minute, lower the heat, cover and simmer. If thicker sauce is
desired, boil until reduced enough to coat spoon. Season sauce to
taste with salt and pepper. Slice pork and spoon sauce over.
Corelli Sure Liked His Waffles
Corelli's Café - 352 King Street,
Newtown
Being
the heart of Newtown it manages to still have that feel of
Bohemia
about
it, which is odd because Arcangelo
Corelli was
Italian not Slavic; nor was he gypsy. In fact he was long dead
before the French even coined the phrase. The point though, is that
Corelli’s has that aire of real Newtown about it with it’s cramped
tables, mismatched paintwork and staff that will get around to
taking your order when they’ve stopped day-dreaming as they watch
the foot traffic.
As for the food, the menu seemed skewed towards breakfast, proven
by dinner there tonight with my pick of the menu being the bangers
and mash (not too bad but simple as it should be). For that
breakfast though John had the generously portioned eggs benedict
with an obviously not
store-bought hollandaise sauce.
You could tell it was made with fresh egg and
lemon.
Eggs Benedict @ Corelli's
Newtown
To
satisfy the need for sugar and fat though I couldn’t turn up the
made-to-order Belgian waffles with strawberry and rhubarb compote,
maple syrup and fresh cream. Good lord it hit the spot — then
stomped around on it for a while. The waffles themselves were light
and fluffy with just enough sugary-caramelised crispiness, balanced
with the sweet and tart compote and the lusciousness of the cream.
I think John’s arse clenched when he tasted some! Are you reading
this John? :P
Waffles with Rhubarb and Strawberry
Compote @ Corelli's Newtown
WTF is Lycopene?
Unlike the anti-oxidents in some substances, like Vitamin-C, those from Lycopene aren't destroyed by cooking, infact, cooking increases the amount you can absorb, so even after Leggos has fully reconstituted what used to be a tomato into what can only loosely be described as tomato paste, there is still actually some benefit for you. That's not to remove the fact that fresh tomato is still going to be better for you than a fully processed substance, but if you want to create a home made tomato sauce with out any other preservatives and chemicals, it's a good way of increasing the anti-oxidents in your system. The currently recommended daily amount of lycopene is about 30mg, which can be had in just a single glass of tomato juice.
A perfect recipe to get some more Lycopene is Hugh's Tomato Ketchup. It makes about a liter.
Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall 's Tomato
Ketchup
Plum and Hazelnut Torte
Bowl of Angena Plums
Plum and Hazelnut Torte -
Serves 8 or more
700g of Plums, quartered and pitted
1 Cup of Sugar
¾ Cup of Hazelnuts
1¼ Cup of Flour
¼ teaspoon of Salt
1½ teaspoons of Baking Powder
½ teaspoon of Allspice
¾ Cups of Butter
3 large Eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla
Preheat your oven to 175°C. Butter and flour a 9" spring form cake
tin.
Quarter and pit plums.
Coarsely chop half of plums and in a bowl toss with 2 tablespoons
sugar. In another bowl combine remaining plums with 2 tablespoons
sugar. The chopped plums will go into the batter, and the quartered
plums will decorate the top. On a baking sheet in middle of oven
lightly toast hazelnuts until fragrant and insides are golden, 10
to 15 minutes. Put all of the nuts into a clean tea-towel and rub
them together to remove the burnt loose papery skins and when cool,
grind them in a food processor until fine.
In a bowl whisk together
hazelnuts, flour, baking powder, salt, and allspice. In a bowl with
an electric mixer beat butter and remaining ¾ cup sugar until light
and fluffy, the colour will change to a very pale yellow. Add eggs,
1 at a time, beating after each addition, and beat in vanilla and
flour mixture until batter is just combined. Note, add the flour to
the batter, and not the other way around.
Drain chopped plums in a
sieve, pressing on fruit, and pat dry with paper towels. Stir plums
into batter and spread evenly in pan.
Drain quartered plums in
sieve, pressing on fruit, and arrange, skin sides up, over batter.
Bake torte in middle of oven 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until golden
brown and a tester comes out clean. Cool torte in pan on a rack 30
minutes. Remove side of pan and cool completely.
Whisk & Pin Dried Fruit Salad
The quality of dried fruit tends to be more about what you don't get than what you do. No moisture, no preservatives, no sulfur and nothing and I mean nothing but fruit. This is top quality produce. On top of that, these are all Australian and you can mail order them too! Also in the Whisk and Pin lineup is a range of organic pre-mixes for breads and pancakes as well as muesli and single varieties of dried fruit. If this fruit salad is anything to go by the rest will be fantastic.
