Re-doing this blog so that I can actually post progress pictures and nice photos of how my cooking went.

Part 1, my first real time actually experimenting with food. The house/cat-sitting time doesn’t really count :P

After the ceviche, the next thing I made was tuna tataki. There’s this place called Central Markets and it’s the best place ever! There’s so many fruit and veg stalls, as well as several seafood shops. And lots of protein. Mmmm all kinds of protein!

Anyway, so having never made anything that required paying a lot of attention, I think my tataki came out very nicely. As I hadn’t explored every stall, my salad was still very basic, with quinoa everywhere!

I then found some duck to play with. Since I’d never cooked it before I had to read up about in case there was something special I had to do, and there was – in this case, I had to make sure I rendered the duck fat correctly! I also prepared some beans, and purple and orange dutch carrots. I hate carrots, but I wanted to eat some, so I figured I’d try and butter them up.

The only other thing I found out about cooking duck breast is that I had to twice cook it – first just grilling the entire fillet, but then once I let it rest and cut it, cooked the pieces a tiny bit more each to ensure they were all cooked.

On my next trip to the markets, I thought I’d step up to a bigger challenge: kangaroo.

I also found some loose wild asparagus so I bought some. I originally wanted to blanch them, but then I was too lazy, plus I remember eating raw asparagus at Cornersmith, so I decided to do the same here. I ran across some fennel, and I’ve always liked the idea of it, and never knew it was aniseed/liquorice! So I bought some, and that set in motion my memory of wanting to make an awesome “house salad” like Rockpool does. So rocket and radishes then got added to the mix. I don’t even like rocket, but it belonged in this salad! So peppery but so tasty.

The kangaroo was pretty much rare, though I was aiming for medium rare. It was still very tender and tasty since I got it marinated with herb and garlic. As a result, I ended up getting kangaroo two more times!

I ran across fresh sardines on my next visit to the markets, so I had to grab some, as they are very tasty and nutritious. Aren’t they so cute???

I pan grilled them with salt and pepper, and placed them on my leftover salad.