Reine's winter wonderfuls

So first time living alone, I am left utterly to my own devices for everything! And considering I don't like the word budget, instead preferring terms like "marginal propensity to spend" and "I allocate and redirect resources," I have done a fair few bits of experimental cooking.Hence, my Adelaidean winter wonderfuls. Winter here has actually been nice so far - I hated Sydney winters and everyone told me Adelaide was cold, super cold. But I've been loving it - apart from having a fit with the sporadic rain - the chill is so pleasant!

Mushrooms, goat curd on rosemary and potato sourdough, egg

Central Markets is absolutely amazing and I love the fresh and seasonal produce. All of a sudden I'm creating things at a cheaper cost than going to cafes and twice as pretty and tasty! After making this masterpiece, I have no desire to have breakfast at any cafe ever again! (Single Origin Roasters, this may include you too :( ) The mushrooms used were button, swiss and pine - pine mushrooms are in season and orange and amazing! I love mushrooms, so I had a blast with this. Buttered up and chive-y, the best kind! I failed at boiling eggs so I watched it closely this time; I wanted a runny yolk but again I overshot by a fraction, however it looked amazing the way it is.

Mushroom and chicken pappardelle

Sounds simple, right? Except this is some amazing wholegrain pasta with no preservatives. Expensive, but great - the texture is slightly grainy with the way I cooked it, but I love it because it's eating with health! It's the same trio of mushrooms as above, with chicken, garlic and sauce made with creme fraiche, topped off with parmigianio reggiano, and a dash of truffle oil. Wow, this was nice when I made it, and then it was mindblowing the day after! Letting the flavours sink in overnight made a huge impact! I am continually disappointed with pasta dishes at restaurants; the best pasta I had was at my local restaurant back in Sydney once, which was very simple - chicken pesto pappardelle. Ever since then, I've stuck with pappardelle (I love how wide the ribbons are) and only love the pasta that I make.

Rabbit stew with bacon, haloumi, lentils, beans, carrot, eggplant

I found farmed rabbit at central markets too - they were selling pieces of it so I decided to try it out, since I never wanted to buy a whole rabbit the first time round. I'd had rabbit once before at Jamie's Italian and loved it, and from what I heard rabbit was best in stew. Because this was farmed, the shop assistant said it'd be tender regardless, but I stuck with stew since I just happened to have a bean and lentil soup mix. I went for a slow cook and decided to safeguard myself in case I destroyed it, to put bacon in the dish. Turns out it works well like that! I also wanted haloumi for that extra bit of fun, and let it sit. I've been told I cooked it near perfect because it tasted just like chicken! It was 100% tasty, and mission accomplished! Never have to cook rabbit ever again since the texture and flavour is just like chicken, but chicken is way cheaper.

House creamed corn, bacon, avocado, tomato on toast

Hello Single Origin Roasters, thank you for your amazing house creamed corn, bacon, avocado, tomato chutney. I have now made my own version thanks to you! Your wonderful memory will live on! I finally decided I had to make creamed corn, and then decided that I needed it as a breakfast with sourdough, bacon, avocado and tomato. Wow, it was great! I just wish I was able to make a tomato salsa, and I forgot to add goat curd. However it was still amazingly tasty and again, why would I ever need to go to a cafe for breakfast ever again? My ego is talking and I am amazing.

French toast, bacon, maple, fig

When my flatmate has stale bread, or when I inadvertently acquire excess bread (and onions) from work after a BBQ, I make french toast! It actually works without sugar; I've been using coconut nectar and agave syrup for most of my cooking, resorting to sugar only for lemon polenta pancakes and poached pears. The slices of bread were too thin, hence it looks kind of funny - I would have preferred thick cut brioche, but hey, I take leftovers to save money anyday! I may be posh with my food preferences, but really I only have one rule: I eat what I like. It just so happens the majority of it is either expensive and/or healthy. I also found some cheap figs so why not!

Okay, super crazy I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING time! I found some patagonian toothfish at the markets, so I HAD to buy some as the only time I've had it before was at Jugemu Shimbashi, where the owner said it was a very tasty fish and worth the money - and he was right. I had forgotten what it was called, but immediately knew I had stumbled upon the same fish as soon as I saw the name. I also bought some duck, and made them the same way - honey soy ginger garlic (plus cinnamon and star anise for the duck). I coined the term "Pseudo confit, semi sous-vide" because I way overcomplicated the process of cooking with flavours - that's how I cook! It was so tasty, that I decided to make the same for some duck legs.

Essentially, I bought oven bags (since I didn't know where to acquire vacuum bags and the machine, plus that'd cost lots of money), and placed the duck and sauce in it. I let it marinate overnight, then slow cooked it (like no heat as I was attempting confit - the water never boiled) for 2-3 hours. The duck legs I left for 2, and they were cooked just right! And smelled amazing.

I then fried these off in a pan just to colour the skin, and then pulled all the meat off so I could nibble at it, make bread rolls or whatever with it!

As I mentioned above, I had too many onions without even wanting them, so I decided to make french onion soup. I wasn't sure exactly how it worked, so I also prepared some leek and fennel to add to it. Good thing I did, as 45 minutes after cooking the onions, and they finally went brown, it shrank from half a pot full of raw onions to a puny amount of caramelised onions! I reckon it would have only been enough for 1.5 servings. I added leek and fennel to bulk it up. All the recipes I saw said to use stock, but I didn't want to (and didn't have) so I used red wine and parmesan rind. Then pancetta and grana padano. I was stupid and added salt so that I almost had a heart attack though! I always remembered that adding bacon to a dish meant I didn't have to add salt, but totally forgot about the pancetta having the same effect.

The end result was the following:

Honey soy ginger duck with onion, leek and fennel soup, crispy pancetta

And last of all for this post, my leftover duck was then used for an amazing salad:

Honey soy ginger duck salad with blue cheese and honeycomb

This was actually really tasty, since the honeycomb was perfect with the blue cheese, and paired well with the honey soy duck. I would so do this again since I love all the ingredients, however, I tried making "chicken, bacon, blue cheese and honeycomb" and that didn't work! So now I know!

And last of all, I spent way too much today on fungi. I couldn't resist and bought the following:

$33 for 11g Tasmanian winter black truffle

$7.50 for 50g fresh French chanterelles

$7.50 for 50g fresh French mousserons

I will be using these for an ultimate decadent pasta dish like the one above.

HERE IS TRUFFLE OF GORGEOUS DARLING BABY OF A FRAGRANT SMELLY THING

Yes, I have started collecting Riedels now too. I REGRET NOTHING.

Reine's cooking adventures part 3

2 months in Adelaide, and three posts about my cooking! If all goes well there might be a part 4 as I really want to make kingfish ceviche, but alas no kingfish fillets yet! I may consider buying a whole fish...Anyway, so I'm finding that I'm actually getting bored of cooking, not because of the cooking itself, but trying to find inspiration for new experiments (dishes). I've gone through so many different animals/meats that I'm running out of proteins to play with. I'm deliberately avoiding quail because I have no way to debone it.Instead of boring text, onto pictures! Since I've moved apartments I've had to transition from gas to electric cooking with mixed results (undercooking kangaroo), but for the most part I still have some magical godlike luck/ability to make fantastic, medium rare meats.Following straight off from my last cooking post, this was kangaroo with leftover zucchini flower. I had two that I accidentally damaged so I figured they'd look just as good as petals.

Upon reflection, I didn't like the way my first version of tuna tataki turned out in terms of presentation. So then of course, I had to do it again! I like version 2's plating a lot better. Plus watercress always makes things fancy.

I then took on the challenge of salt and pepper squid, a dish that is very popular with my brother and myself. I bet this would make him jealous, it turned out much better than I hoped! I remember reading up on how to make salt and pepper squid, agonising over the fact that I only had spelt flour and wasn't sure how or if it would work with a mass of salt and pepper. I didn't even know why I needed flour in the mix, being the nub that I am. However my ability to "cook by panicking" worked out better than expected! I was incredibly proud of this dish, though I don't think anything can surpass the visual glory that was my salmon and stuffed zucchini flower, but this was close!

However, I'm not just all about super fancy, so I can actually make stuff that's a little more normal.

Stir fried satay chicken with mushroom, carrot, snow pea, onion, capsicum:

Porterhouse steak with basil, tomato, radish, cucumber, tomato salad:

Salmon and prawn plate:

I got bored of buying normal steak so I opted for some aged stuff, which actually is tastier. I was still struggling with the cooktop so it was slightly too cooked on the outside and undercooked on the inside. I did find corn and pomegranate and they are sooo tasty when added to a fennel salad!

I was craving tomatoes, and I think mixed heirlooms just aren't in season, so I had to settle for red, yellow and black (black russian). I can't believe how tasty heirlooms are, compared to normal tomatoes. I also got some basil, because TOMATO AND BASIL. I struggled with fish because I was too early and they didn't have snapper. I couldn't wait any longer due to work, so I rouletted and chose monkfish! Not that I have any idea what that was. I still prefer snapper, after this adventure.

During my shopping I saw some gruyere, and just absolutely could not resist buying some. Which then reminded me I had a tasty tomato and taleggio toast from Paddy's Lantern, so then I had to buy some taleggio to go with the tomatoes I bought. For some reason I had this bright idea to mix the taleggio and gruyere together in a "sauce" to put  on the tomatoes... so I double boiled it to mix and then added some olive oil for who knows what reason! This all seemed to work nicely when it was warm and homogeneous, but as soon as it was on my cold tomatoes for too long it semi solidified into the funkiest textured... glooby thing ever. Whoops!

Last of all is my Venison Project! The most epic of all! I decided for some reason I would try my hand at venison, probably because I have a friend who shares psychic waves with me and venison is a meat that is common enough that it had to be experimented with. When I asked them what kind of meat it cooked like, I was hoping to compare it to something like beef, or pork, something normal. Instead, after thinking about it for a while, the shop assistant said kangaroo. Great. That meant it was a tricky meat! GOOD THING I HAVE COOKED KANGAROO BEFORE. So then I tried reading up on some cooking tips, and figured I'd just go with salt pepper like I always do. But then that night I got home late, and was too lazy to cook meat, so I opted for mussels, which I both cooked and devoured in 5 mins.

That meant more time to think about venison! So while walking through Woolworths I decided I'd grab a herb mix packet thing - labelled for flavouring lamb - and would completely flavourfy my venison. This mix contained fresh rosemary, thyme and parsley. I never knew thyme smelled like it did! It reminds me of olives. Anyway, so I rubbed the whole bunch onto both sides of my venison leg steak, poured some olive oil in it and left it to marinate overnight. Now also during this time I figured I'd try making something called orange butter sauce. Upon research, it turns out this was a real sauce! So I bought oranges and butter. Then the next day I bought another packet of herbs, this time containing marjoram, sage, tarragon, rosemary and thyme. I put some of that with a couple of oranges I juiced with my fist, as my apartment didn't have an orange juicer and I wasn't going to pay $5 for the only one available in the shops. I simmered it and added butter randomly, without even measuring exactly how much butter I was adding. By the end of it, it was nicely reduced and glossy. And possibly too buttery but hey, butter is butter is tasty. I tried it and was pleasantly surprised that it was tangy and orangey!

So back to the venison. So I rubbed some coarsely ground salt and pepper on it about an hour before cooking, cause I then took an hour to prepare my salad and make the sauce. Yes, I am ridiculously slow and inefficient since I still claim that I don't cook - I mean I've only been cooking for 2 months, and only for myself! When I was finally ready to cook the venison I had no game plan - just a little while on each side, while playing with the heat and trying to wing it as best as possible. People have asked me how I test the "done-ness" of my meat but my only reply is "I don't time it, I just panic and hope for the best!" I guess I really do have some sort of food god watching over me, as wow, my venison project was an absolute winner. Tangy orange butter sauce, great salad, and medium-rare-not-tough-at-all-super-tender venison! I was amazed that it was neither under nor overcooked! Beginner's luck I say!

I'm still not sure that orange butter was the best match for the meat, but it made the salad taste amazing. The venison had enough flavour from all the marinating it had been through, so I was happy with it all round. There's another achievement for my ego.

Now the only thing left to do is agonise whether I want to try going to an 8 course degustation at a restaurant here called Celcius (the head chef is ex Noma, Marque and know knows what else!), and the only way I can excuse myself for not going awkwardly by myself and forking out $130 for dinner, is to make something as visually epic and remotely nice tasting as the vegetable garden that was part of their menu when they opened.

Well, I never know what I'm going to eat till I go shopping, so that's all for now!

FOOD NUB EXTRAORDINAIRE