Absence Makes My Gut Grow Bigger

Hello again!  Wow, it's been almost two long weeks since my last post, though it feels like it's been forever.  Well, not forever, more like...three weeks.  But I missed you all!  Many tales to tell, many dishes to share, many kilos to shed.  And, spoiler alert, this time I had a few wins!  Hold on to your hats!

Where do I start?  Well, as mentioned a post or two ago, I decided to go back to basics and try my hand at a few simple dishes.  And how much simpler can you get then steak and mash potatoes?

Just look at that mash!  Potatoes, butter, milk, parmesan and splash of olive oil.  I even did that thing where I put the potatoes through a sieve to make it super smooth, and it worked out pretty well.  Smooth, rich, creamy, cheesy mash potatoes.  And an over seasoned steak, but let's not talk about that.  Just focus your eyes on the cool ripples I made with the mash potatoes.  Fancy!

I was feeling pretty chuffed after that dish, so for some reason I decided to try my hand again at risotto.  Actually it's because I still had half a bag of rice and a litre of stock left and I didn't want to waste it all.  A friend of a friend of mine gave me a handy tip that changed everything, and it was so bleeding obvious.  When I make normal rice at home (and by normal rice I mean asian style, in a rice cooker) I always wash my rice first, usually multiple times, to get all the crap and starch off.  It didn't even occur to me that I should wash my risotto rice, but doing that helped get rid of all the starch that was clagging up my risotto.  And the result?

Much much much better.  A very beige looking chicken and mushroom risotto yes, but the actual risotto part was a lot better this time.  Still not great, but a huge improvement over my previous disasters.  And I still have rice and stock left, so expect another risotto dish to pop up in the very near future.

Crap it's been so long since I did all this cooking that I've forgotten what I actually made.  I'm sorting through all my photos to remind myself, and oh my!  How could I have forgotten this dish?  This is the big one!  This is my crowning jewel!  Check it!

Lamb shanks with leek, onion, carrots, garlic cloves and mash potato.  By far the best meal I have made.  Ever.  What's even more surprising is Jamie Oliver finally pulled through for me.  He has an interesting method whereby he wraps up each lamb shank in its own individual foil parcel thing along with all the vegetables, which works very well for single serve people like me.  I even had Greta come over to share it with me and she rated it an 8 out of 10.  Take that Masterchef!

Anyway I think I'll leave it there.  It's 11:30pm, I'm tired, I have work tomorrow, and I'm watching Zombieland, which is pretty good but nowhere near as fun as Shaun of the Dead.  Oh and I watched Inception the other day, which was veeeery good.  At risk of spoiling it for anyone out there, but it almost seemed like a cross between The Matrix and Ocean's Eleven.  With dreams.  Work that out!

So hopefully it won't be too long before my next post.  Don't worry, I've actually been doing plenty of cooking, I'm just too lazy to put them all up here at once.  I've got about...three dishes saved in the bank for next time.  One of them is a risotto.

One Night In Dunkeld

When I first learnt that I was going to be isolated out in greater western Victoria for 10 weeks, the only positive I could perceive was that I would only be a short drive away from Dunkeld.  Situated just south of the picturesque Grampians and with a population of just over 450, this little country town can lay claim to be the home of one of Australia's finest restaurants.  I don't think anything I write could do it justice, so here's a review by The Age:

http://www.royalmail.com.au/Pages/News_and_Reviews.aspx?id=135

My friend Mali and I had been eagerly anticipating a road trip to this gastronomic destination for months, and at one point it seemed we would never make it.  Booked out on Saturday nights till September, somehow we both managed to get a Friday off work to make the trip down for an evening dinner.  The food gods were definitely smiling upon us as we drove through the Grampians on a gorgeous winter's day, a brief stop at Boroka lookout to look out over the incredible flat expanse that is country Victoria.  We arrived in Dunkeld soon after with little ceremony, and after donning ourselves in suitable fine-dining bests we embarked upon a 4 hour gustatory marathon that was a true test of our minds, our senses, and our alcohol tolerance.

A disclaimer before I begin: I am not a foodie.  If  you were expecting a wordy and eloquent review with all the embellishments worthy of Matt Preston, you will be sadly disappointed.  There will be pictures, there will be a description of the dish, there will be a clumsy attempt by me to describe what I thought about it.  If that's not good enough for you, then I'm afraid you're reading the wrong blog.

Offering both an omnivore and vegetarian menu both me and Mali opted for the protein, and, after much debate, decided to splurge on the matched wines.  Perhaps more famous than its food, the Royal Mail houses one of the most incredible wine collections in the country, and we both felt it would be a waste to have come this far and not sample a taste of the good life.  Knowing a thing or two about good wine, Mali spared no expense in choosing the international vintage wines, whereas I opted for the much more restrained local village wines.

From the Menu Omnivore, Royal Mail Hotel, July 9, 2010

Jerusalem artichoke, black truffle, triple cream

with philipponnat reserve rosee brut

A very simple looking starter, and you may be wondering, "Where's the black truffle and triple cream?"  Ingeniously stuffed inside the artichoke, both me and Mali were delighted when cream and truffle flakes oozed unctuously from the cut centre.  A delightful and surprisingly light start to the evening, paired with some lovely pink bubbles to help set mood.

Pacific oyster, snow pea, grapefruit, marine essence
with bannockburn sauvingon blanc

Perhaps Dan Hunter's homage to the Sounds of the Sea, this little dish made me think of an aquarium in a bowl, especially with its 'marine essence' broth (not that I've ever tasted the 'marine essence' of an aquarium before).  A wonderfully textured dish with little crunchy thingies added to the smooth, not-so-slimy oysters.  And another fantastic wine to boot.  A light, fruity, aromatic sauv blanc, probably the best I've ever had, which is not difficult since most of the sauv blancs I buy are from the cheapo section and Liquor Land.

Mackerel, burnt celeriac, mustard, pomegranate

with kracher 'illmitz' pinot gris

This one was a real winner for me.  Actually let me just say now, all of the seafood dishes (and there are a few of them) were all fantastic.  What I really liked about this were the mustards seeds which added just enough to the dish without being too overpowering, and pomegranate is always a nice surprise when they explode in your mouth.  This paired with what I think was the choice wine of the night for me, an Austrian pinot gris that - and I'm not even sure if I'm describing this right - had amazing body and texture.  I really couldn't get enough.

Egg yolk, toasted rye, legumes, yeast
with best's chardonnay

Mali informed me that this was one of the Royal Mail's signature dishes of the season, and at first glance it was hard to see why.  But what appeared to be an egg yolk on a mix of crumbs turned out to be a very intelligent dish that played with a lot of different textures.  Perhaps not the most flavourful dish, but enjoyable nonetheless.  And I couldn't quite put my finger on it till this morning, but the grains reminded me of Kellogg's Just Right cereal.  The wine was again incredible, and given that Best's winery is on the way back to Melbourne from Horsham, you can be sure that I'll be dropping by to pick up a few bottles.

Hapuku, brassicas, chicken skin and broth
with riddoch estate shiraz

The story is getting a bit repetitive now guys.  Great dish, even better wines, etc etc.  What I can say about this though is that I got very excited when I noted the puree tasted like cauliflower, then found out cauliflower comes for the brassica species.  Chalk one up for my tastebuds.  And what the hell is Hapuku?

Eel, beef tendon, kohl rabi, potato
with majella cabernet sauvignon

Over halfway through the menu, and I realise we haven't seen a single piece of meat yet.  But its hard to complain when you get to experience such a range of seafood.  A nice, firmly cooked eel with a very very very soft beef tendon that almost melted away.  And a few little veggie trimmings.  And another glass of wine.  By the way, Mali and I were both very happy at this point, and it's remarkable that I continued to get these still shots with no flash.

Lamb, eggplant in white miso, pine nut, chlorophyll
with best's pinot meunier

Finally we get a decent piece of meat on the plate.  And I know what you're thinking.  "Chlorophyll...that's the stuff in plants, right?"  Yes, your year 7 science teacher didn't lie.  That green smear is indeed chlorophyll, somehow extracted from some plant in some mysterious way, and uhh...it was nice.  What I really loved though was the surprising acidity in the eggplant (I have no idea how) that, when eaten together with the lamb, really gave it something extra.  Another great selection from Best's, and another one to put on the shopping list.

Rhubarb, licorice, almond, citrus

So we moved onto the desserts, and this little dish was to serve as a palate cleanser before we moved onto the good stuff, hence no matching wines.  Which was probably a smart move, since there were some heavy hitting dessert wines still to come.  I'm not a big fan of licorice, but this quite a well balanced dish with the licorice combining with the sourness of the rhubarb to really knock the flavours out of you, and the almonds just gave it all a nice crunchy texture.

Banana in szechuan pepper, coconut and cocoa ice

with crawford river 'nektar' semillon sauvignon

Szechuan pepper?!?  For dessert?!?  Yes you read it right, and to be honest it was delicious.  Wonderfully soft banana with just a hint of spice, and a cocoa ice that gave you the coolness you crave when you have dessert.  It definitely didn't make me miss ice-cream.  And that wine!  As our sommelier said, "I hate desserts, but I love dessert wines."  Actually my wine went beautifully with my dessert, whereas Mali's vintage option was an incredible stand-alone dessert wine, and I would have been happy to have just sipped on that for the rest of the night.

Pistachio, hazelnut, honeycomb, chocolate

with sanchez romate cream sherry

So the final dish was a rich, decadent, indulgent mix of hazelnut ice-cream (yum!), pistachio (yum yum!) and honeycomb and chocolate pieces (yum yum yum!).  OK, maybe not the most sophisticated dessert in the world, but definitely a table pleaser.  The cream sherry was lovely and thick and definitely left a lasting impression.

And that brings me to the end of the night!  10 dishes and 9 choice wines later Mali and I were suitably stuffed and unsuitably inebriated, and settled down with a nice cup of coffee and a few little chocies.  Looking back there were definitely some highlights for me, including the mackerel and lamb dishes.  The food, while perhaps not the most complex or the most flavoursome, was definitely very intelligent, and a lot of the night was spent thinking about all the different components of each dish and how they combined so well to create flavours and textures.

But by far the standout, well above any dish on the menu, was the matching wine selection.  I am so glad Mali convinced me to go for the matched wine option because I have never, and will probably never again, have such amazing wine.  And what added to the whole experience was our entertainingly passionate and expressive sommelier who seemed to ooze sex and sleaze every time he described each of the wines.  I found myself looking forward to his visits every time we had a new wine just so I could enjoy the theatre of his presentations.

In keeping with the whole wine theme, Mali and I ended up buying another bottle of something down the cheaper end of the scale to take back to the hotel and spent the rest of the night having a big D&M. That tends to happen a lot whenever good wine and good company are involved, and the best thing is good wine never touches me the next morning.  Hooray!

So in short, the Royal Mail is definitely worth a trip to the middle of nowheresville.  The food is an experience and the wine is to die for.  Not only that, the surrounds of the Grampians are beautiful, and the days can be spent walking the many trails that wind through this great mountain range.  Unfortunately it was raining when Mali and I were there so we didn't get to see any of it, but hey, there's always next time!

Three Strikes, and I'm Out!

Hi everybody!  Firstly, apologies to all my loyal followers out there (yes all three of them).  It's been a while since I put something up here.  It's not that I haven't been cooking, I've just been extremely lazy (which should come as no surprise to any of you).  There has been many a cold lonely night spent staying up to watch the World Cup as well as a few strums on the guitar, which I am also learning how to play while I'm up here in the Horse-Ham.  And like my cooking, it is not going well.

Oh it was a week of tragic comedy, or comedic tragedy, or maybe just simply tragedy.  I made the bold and ambitious decision to attempt a few risotto recipes from Jamie's demonic cookbook.  Because they all began with the same risotto base, I decided to mix things up a little this week by making risotto three ways.

Prologue: The Risotto Base

Oil, butter, onions (expertly diced, I think I'm getting the hang of it!), white wine, aborio rice, and for some reason Jamie Oliver likes to put celery in his risotto base.  I'm not sure if this is usually done, but what the hell do I know?  I had been told that to get the right consistency for the risotto I needed to:

1. Cook on low heat
2. Add stock slowly, letting it all absorb before adding more
3. Keep stirring

Things seemed to be going well until I started adding the stock to the rice, then it just all clagged up.  It should have been my first clue that this was not going to be a good week.

Act 1: Asparagus, Mint and Lemon Risotto

With my base sort of done (and once again looking nothing like the pictures) I get cracking on my first risotto, which on paper seemed like a simple base with a few chopped asparagus spears and mint with a squeeze of lemon juice.  Being the stupid naive cooking amateur that I am I just did what I was told and threw in the juice of a whole lemon, which turned my risotto into a big, sour, claggy mess.  And by sour I mean eye-tearing, face-wrenching sour.  And by claggy I mean I probably could have used it to wallpaper my flat.  Quite the underwhelming beginning to my risotto adventure, and it wasn't about to get any better.

Act 2: Spinach and Goat's Cheese Risotto

So a day after my lemon risotto fiasco I tried my hand at a spinach risotto.  This one definitely looked interesting in the book, mainly because it was green.  I don't know about you, but green rice excites me.  I make another batch of risotto base, and despite cooking is slower it still turns into a gluggy mass.  And my spinach didn't mix in.  Instead it just kind of sat around the rice, making it more of a green speckled risotto rather than a nice uniform green.  The goat's cheese definitely saved the dish though, giving a nice sourness that cut through what could have been a very bland dish.  Still, yet another textural disaster.

Act 3: Squash and Sage Risotto

I left this one till last because it had a few more components to it.  Squash, cinnamon, chilli and sage.  Unfortunately they don't sell any spices here in Horsham so I had to buy the Masterfood's shakers at Coles.  I'm currently amassing quite a few spices, and yes, it's a good looking rack.  I also had to exclude a few things from the original menu, namely amaretti biscuits (because I don't know what they are) and marscapone cheese (because I didn't want to buy a whole tub of cheese for a recipe that only requires a tablespoon).  Again, I try to tweak a few things while cooking the risotto, and again, it just doesn't work!  Furthermore, my pumpkin doesn't really mix in very well so it becomes more like risotto rice surrounded by lumps of pumpkin rather than a nice smooth orange mixture.  It was not appealing, nor did it taste all that great.

Three times I tried to make risotto, and three times I failed miserably.  What cursed dish is this?  Not only was I making it wrong, I couldn't even figure out what I was doing to screw it up.  I didn't know (and still don't know) whether I was cooking to fast or too slow, too high or too low, adding too much stock or not adding enough, whatever!  I was feeling so disheartened and, I'm afraid, seriously contemplating giving up on this whole cooking venture all together.

After coming home over the weekend and venting my woes to all my friends, I came to realisation that I was trying to reach too far too early on my way to becoming a somewhat competent amateur chef.  Here I was trying to make risottos and giant pots of cannelloni when I can't even poach an egg or mash a potato.  So I'm ditching Jamie Oliver for the time being and going back to basics.  First on the agenda is potatoes, and all the wonderful things you can do with them.  I'm thinking mash potatoes, roast potatoes, baked potatoes, etc.  If you can think of any more let me know and I'll give it a crack.  I may get sick of potatoes by the end of this and will likely end up a big starchy lump of ugly, but at least I'll be able to make some good chats.

Epilogue:  Leftover Squash Soup

As the title implies, I had some squash and stock left over so I decided to make soup.  Jamie didn't have a recipe in his book so I looked one up on Epicurious seemed appealing.  It was then I discovered that soup is VERY difficult to make without a food processor.  I did my best with my spatula but the end result was a thick, lumpy, not-very-good soup, but at least it was tasty.  I may have overdid it with the sage powder though.  I'm just loving the new rack way too much.

That's it guys!  Again very sorry for the delay with the post.  I know how much you were all eagerly waiting to read the next installment of my cooking disasters.  Unfortunately it will be awhile until my next post because I haven't had any time to cook this week.  Some friends came up from Melbourne to visit for no particular reason and we went out to a horrible, horrible, horrible mexican place on the main street.  The combination of 'country town' and 'mexican restaurant' should have rung some alarm bells, but we were enticed by the offer of $6 margaritas.

And tonight was dinner at Greta's place.  Greta, my co-surgical intern here in fabulous Horsham, is also another great cook and let me help her make a bangin' lasagne with apple crumble for dessert.  It was awesome, though I may have eaten one too many serves of the apple crumble.  I may have even had a little vom on the ride home.

In other exciting news I'm going down to The Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld with my good friend Mali, who is also a big foodie.  The Royal Mail is described as one of the best restaurants in regional Australia and we are both looking forward to a 10 course degaustation that will no doubt blow our minds, our taste buds and our wallets.  All the details to follow in my next blog.  Stay tuned!