I’ve been interning at some food jobs lately – chase that dream! – and I’ve been taking home HEAPS of leftovers. Some of these leftovers are in the form of raw ingredients, and you know how I love repurposing ingredients. On this particular day, I scored a box of vegetables, and with spring upon us, I thought it would be a great idea to showcase the freshness of these vegetables – let’s STEAM THE SUCKAS!
IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!! Well, it was my birthday. Thanks to the lovely people at the Trish Nichol Agency and 3to7, I got to have a lovely birthday brunch to start off my day.
It actually came out in a capsicum cup. HOW CUTE IS THIS????!!! Considering that I didn’t ask for the long list of specifications I have for this drink, it came out very well balanced and completely delicious. My dining partner ordered a coffee, and as an ex-barista, he’s very particular. Personally, I don’t know too much about coffee, but I’ll take his word for it that the extra strong cappuccino he ordered didn’t need any sugar, it was so good.
With the drinks, we also decided to order a sharing platter ($24 per person).
Clockwise from left: Smoked kipfler potatoes with chorizo, homemade baked beans, scrambled eggs, chicken bagel.
Clockwise from left: Coconut french toast, Arabesque pancakes with banana and salted caramel, toasted crumpets
If you’re one of those people who love variety – like me! – and love having a little bit of everything, this is the option for you. This platter is a glorious selection across their menu, and if I hadn’t asked about the other items – I’ll get to that soon – I would totally have been satisfied with it.
As with most platters, items can be a little bit hit and miss, and I’m glad to say that this one had more hits than misses. The scrambled eggs were absolutely divine, and PERFECTLY COOKED! For once, I didn’t have to specify that I wanted my eggs underdone, and have them come out over anyway. These were silky and luscious, and a real credit to the chef. The baked beans were delish also, packed full of flavour and giving a hearty oomph to the meal. The arabesque pancakes are also worth a mention – light and fluffy pancakes are covered in a rich caramel sauce and pieces of cooked banana, with a scoop of orange clotted cream on the side. If you love a rich breakfast, then this is for you. The only small thing for me is that the banana was slightly under ripe, and left a milk chalky taste in my mouth. The coconut french toast was a surprise – I’m normally not a fan of coconut, but it was well soaked and had the texture of pudding (I like!). Besides the fresh berries, the french toast was also paired with some fruit that was cooked with cardamom. That, I found a little bit strong for my liking. Just a touch.
But here are the truly magical bits.
According to the lovely and informative waitress, one of the items that are not on the platter is the steak sandwich. So the chef kindly sent out a few pieces of the steak for us to try. OMGOMGOMG. It was seriously one of the best steaks I’ve had to date. The steak was cooked sous vide – low temperature, submerged in a water bath – and so it’s never overcooked, and consistently turns out the same amazing results. As I was having the steak on its own, I did have to add a touch more salt to it. but it was melt-in-your-mouth tender. I love sous vide cooking.
And speaking of melt in your mouth tender:
I think the salmon is the piece de resistance. Seriously. Confit steak of salmon is paired with perfect 63C eggs, little fried pieces of lemon ricotta and a quenelle of vanilla butter. It’s so surprisingly simple on the palate – it was almost as if everything was in its purest flavour and form – the textures were unbelievable. The temperature of the oil for the confit salmon – I’m told – is also controlled by an immersion circulator, and the eggs are also cooked sous vide. If you’re wondering about all the hype regarding a 63C egg, you should really try this.
SEE THAT YOLK???? *drools* It’s like yolk porn the way it oozes. The salmon was also silky tender, but still flaked with the slightest pressure. Sure, everything needed a touch more salt – for me – but as I’m sure you know by now, I’m a bit of a salt fiend.
In all, it was a marvellous birthday brunch. The waitress provided excellent service, and the food was incredible. And it’s all wrapped up in a hip waterloo location, with amazing light and a relatively quiet street. Great for a Sunday morning get together.
Note: Tammi from Insatiable Munchies and her dining partner dined as guests of 3to7 and the Trish Nichol Agency.
We ate at:
3to7
0499 418 895
3-7 Danks Street
Waterloo
NSW 2017
Dad can be so hard to gift sometimes, especially because your dad might just be the stoic type who tells everyone not to make a fuss. Well, Dad deserves some pampering too, and if you are stuck on ideas, here are some cute, thoughtful ones that I’ve come across, that I absolutely love.
In the spirit of Fathers’ Day being just round the corner, and in support of dude food, I decided to try Heston Blumenthal’s Bacon and Egg Ice Cream. This recipe is an absolute crackup – you should really watch the faces of people who first try this – and it’s so amazingly easy to carry out.
This smooth rich ice cream actually tastes intensely of bacon and egg, and the custard is actually more delicious than the ice cream. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So let’s just get stuck into the recipe:
Heston’s Bacon and Egg Ice Cream:
500ml full cream milk
Good quality bacon
12 egg yolks
60g sugar
So first the bacon. Pop it under the grill till it’s all nice and golden and delicious – try not to eat it all! – and put it into a pot.
I gave it a quick chop, but you don’t really have to. Also, the amount of bacon used does affect how strong the bacon flavour is. I used about 2 rashers because I figured that it would be infusing overnight, so I could afford to use a little less.
Add your milk to your bacon, then bring to the boil
This just helps to get those flavours mingling. At this point, your milk will start to look a little pink. Then pour it all into a container and leave it in the fridge overnight.
Now you don’t want anyone to drink or throw away your funky concoction, so LABEL THE DANG THING!!
Bring your milk back up to the boil, then strain it. In a separate bowl, whisk together 12 egg yolks with 60g of sugar.
Why so many egg yolks? Well, while the custard would still work with less egg yolks, you want the eggy-ness to come across. It is a bacon and egg ice cream after all. So you achieve that by adding more egg yolks. And the whites don’t have to go to waste either! Simply give them a good whisk and use them to flavour some nuts!
Then stream your hot milk into the egg yolks while whisking, then return the mixture to a clean pan. Cook, cover low heat, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. For the nerdy cooks, you can take this custard to about 80C before it starts curdling. If you do intend to take it to 80C, then prepare a bowl set over another bowl with ice to stop the cooking process. Otherwise, take it to a little less and pour it into another bowl.
Then chill the whole mixture – this helps it freeze faster and prevents large ice crystals which can make your ice cream ‘crunchy’ – and then churn according to your ice cream manufacturer’s instructions.
The result?
A rich creamy ice cream that tastes of exactly what it’s meant to be – bacon and eggs. Personally, I thought the custard tasted wayyy more intense than the ice cream, so before you start dialling down on the flavour, try the finished product first.
To serve, Heston does this funky thing with using dry ice and a mixer, where the ice cream turns out look like scrambled eggs. You can totally do that too, but I’m short one mixer at the moment. I just topped my ice cream with toasted bread crumbs and some crispy bacon on the side.
Bet dad will get a kick out of this!
With Father’s Day just round the corner, I’m sure everyone’s racking their brains to figure out just how to spoil dad. Well, if your dad loves flavoured nuts, I’ve got a really simple recipe here for you.
When I first had this idea, I went trawling through the net for spiced nuts recipes, but all of them seem to just dust roasted nuts with spices. But what about that gnarly crispy coating that you get with store bought nuts?
Well, the secret? Egg whites.
I learnt a recipe for almond biscuits that use just lightly whipped egg whites with icing sugar and slivered almonds, and it gave the exact texture that I wanted for my nuts.
Cayenne Spiced Nuts:
1 large egg white
350g raw cashews (or any nuts you like)
3 teaspoons of cayenne pepper
1 tsp of paprika
2 tsp salt (or smoked salt if you can get your hands on it)
2 tsp icing sugar
Preheat the oven to 180C. Simply whip up the egg whites to soft peaks, then stir in all the seasoning. Coat the nuts in the mixture, then spread onto a baking paper lined cookie sheet in a single layer. Bake till golden brown, then let cool. Break up the nuts – it would have baked into one single sheet – and if things aren’t as crispy, you can dry it out a little in a low (150C) oven.
Then simply pop into a jar/airtight container/cellophane bags and serve it up to Dad with his favourite whisky on the rocks/beer/beverage of choice!
I love how Lindt always comes up with new things! This time, it’s a cracker of a dessert that they’ve called the Lindt Dome of Decadence.
According to Marketing Director of Lindt Andrew Curran, there is a very deep seated psychology that has to do with people and eating chocolate. Apparently, chocolate enjoyers are divided into two categories: Controllers, and Indulgers. The controllers love to enjoy and savour their chocolate in small amounts, and the indulgers just love to dive head first into abundant amounts of the stuff.
Me? I think I’m a controller, but when it comes to Lindt, I could always do with just a little bit more.
But, before we get into the nitty gritty of the dome, Lindt prove themselves to be gracious hosts by greeting us with chocolate martinis and other, equally decadent food.
And so we begin.
The dome is made of tempered Lindt Chocolate set into a mould.
A chocolate base gets a scattering of roasted hazelnuts, and then beautiful vanilla bean and white chocolate ice cream.
More hazelnuts, then the dome gets carefully placed onto the top.
Now, the fun bit. When you order a dome of decadence, you get a little pot of warm molten chocolate to yourself.
What happens next?
Eastwood is home to a plethora of different cafes and bakeries, and I LOVE IT. So one morning, before doing the groceries, a leisurely brunch seemed to be in order.
This quaint little cafe has an adorable decor, with wood grain tracing all over the walls of the cafe. It had a great ambience to kick back and have a chat with friends.
The big breakfast was a little pricey – it was about $15 – but the fare was decent. Everything that was meant to be hot, was hot, and everything that was meant to be crispy, was crispy.
We also had the Eggs Benedict.
This wasn’t the best breakfast by a long shot. I had asked for the eggs to be underdone, and the eggs were clearly overdone. The ham and muffin wasn’t actually toasted, and was left cold, and the wilted spinach was stringy and not silky like I expected. The hollandaise sauce was thick and creamy, but not actually buttery like it should be.
In all, the food was average, although a bit pricey, and the service was very dicey. A few of the staff members were quite friendly, but the person that was actually standing behind the counter was disinterested, dismissive, and looked like he really didn’t want to be there.
I wouldn’t mind taking away a coffee there again at some point, but I’m not that inspired to have another meal there any time soon.
We ate at:
Caffe Cherry Beans, Eastwood
Eastside Shopping Centre
Shop 201, 62-80 Rowe St.
Eastwood NSW 2122
I always thought that Japan City was a gift shop. Really, I did. I used to walk by the one at the Westfield’s in Hornsby and stare at amazement at the utterly cute things in the window. Well, little did I know that it also had a sushi bar! Would the food be as adorable as the random gifts?
Well they were. The sushi was dainty and a comfortable mouthful, and packed full of flavour. The seafood was fresh and well balanced, and the service was polite and attentive. There wasn’t table service, but they were lovely and polite in seating the group before informing us that we need to order at the counter, and the food will be brought out to us.
We also ordered some gyoza and Japanese marinated eggplant, which were also quite delish. The food came out all at once, which was nice especially we were sharing, and the interior had a lovely bright atmosphere, filled with beautiful Japanese goodies.
In all, a pleasant experience, and one that I wouldn’t mind repeating again. I also loved the extra perk – they provided free wifi and let us sit and chat for as long as we wanted without trying to reclaim the table for other customers. Lovely, fresh and light.
We ate at:
Japan City Top Ryde Pty Ltd
(02) 9809 3001
Shop L1/ 109-129 Blaxland Rd
Ryde NSW 2112, Australia
As part of Product Talk by Nuffnang I was sent some Maggi Stir Fry Creations to try. And we all know how I feel about receiving things in the mail. =)
Each pack comes with two sections: the infusion paste and the finishing sauce. You’re meant to marinate the meat in the infusion paste, then fry off your meat and veggies in the finishing sauce. The idea is that it gives you two layers of flavours, in the most speedy fashion possible.
The back of the packet calls for 500g of meat and about 3 cups of chopped veggies.
I love that the instructions are basically to throw whatever meat and veg in that you have on hand. It’s a great way to clear the fridge, and provides flexibility for whatever is in season. And a great way to get in your 5 fruit and veg in a day! Just fry the veg off in order of hardness to softness, and add the meat. Then the finishing sauce, and you’re done.
The result?
Well, I’m partial to slightly more punchy flavours, so these are a little on the light side for me. I did add a little more chilli and a dash more soy, but I suspect that it’s also because I added extra noodles in. On the whole, it’s a great idea for a super convenient lunch or dinner, especially if you’re not the kind of person to have a pantry cupboard full of random condiments – as I have. And as with anything, it is always easy to tweak things if you’ve got a decent base to start with. And it’s a decent enough base.
It also managed to create a portion that was enough for a big serving for 4, or a medium serving for 6. And with all the veggies I managed to pack in, I was plenty full on a medium serving anyway. Definitely something I would use as a base in a pinch.
I have a new found enjoyment of Persian food. The rice, the stews, the liberal use of turmeric…it all culminates in a beautifully delicious end product that speaks of decades of recipe refinement.
There is one particular recipe that ingeniously uses potatoes, mince, onion and spices to make little patties that are delicious over rice, with a fresh tangy side salad. Kotlets – which to me sound like cutlets – seem like a great way to stretch out the meat supply. I can’t actually find any history on these delicious morsels, but most Persians that I speak to recall these as their childhood favourite.