Reine's cooking adventures part 4
Last part of my cooking adventures! My team gave me a techniques cookbook as a going away present so that makes me happy - I love it because techniques are much more valuable than any old recipe.Anyway, so in my last weeks of Adelaide here's some things I've whipped up.I wanted to have a go at pickling, so I bought some carrots, apple cider vinegar, pickling spice mix, garlic, onions, and some chilli. I mixed this all in various quantities, and added salt and sugar to taste. I don't think I got it quite right however it was still very tasty.I also cut my carrots all different ways in case one was more visually appealing. Plus julienning is SKILL. Then I would also have carrots for some fantastic salad. I love making salad with access to a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables because it makes for incredibly varied salad.
This leads on to grilled snapper. I love snapper. The kind I've been buying is some red skinned queen snapper fillet thing, I think. I've managed to cook it well the two times I've played with it, it tastes great.
I decided to try making dessert for the first time after visiting some farmer's markets and finding purple pears. I'm not usually a dessert person, but those purple pears were totally asking to be purple-fied with some red wine poaching. So red wine, cinnamon, vanilla and star anise it was! With a "pomegranate surprise" as I added a few bits of pomegranate into the poaching sauce, though I don't think it did anything to the colour or flavour.
I like this shot cause you see my workspace and that I did the pickling on the same day. And lol, that bottle of wine. Tastes good, but I should use something cheaper for this stuff next time!
The amount of mascarpone on display wasn't enough for both pears, but at the same time two pears is way too rich! I was so full trying to eat all of it as I needed more mascarpone to counter the winey-ness of the pears. It still tasted good and looked amazing.
Now that I had pickled carrots, I put them on all my salads!
And when I was too vingearised by the pickled carrots and/or couldn't be bothered putting a lot of effort into thinking about what to cook next, I went back to trusty old tuna tataki style steak with avocado and tomato.
I realised that unless I got an entire kingfish, I wouldn't find a time to make kingfish ceviche as there were never any fillets for sale. So I decided, why not, let's make ceviche from scratch! So I tried my hand at filleting a whole kingfish, since the fish shop wasn't able to do it for me. The only experience I've had prior to this was just watching Masterchef contestants filleting fish, so I was fairly sure I wasn't going to fare any better. I still missed a lot of the meat but I reckon it was good enough!
It took 6 limes to get enough juice to marinate the amount of flesh I got from the fish. I also added some chilli here because I regretted not adding any heat last time.
And here are some pretty tomatoes and the salad:
The final mixed result! Presentation-wise, I chose this shot. The first time I did it, I hadn't prepped enough coriander to garnish and it was missing some chilli decoration. Second time round I remembered that but forgot to toast the corn before serving :( So here is just a pretty dish!
And here is some lamb, as I have cooked lamb but never found it interesting enough to post:
So much cooking!!! And now that I'm back home I no longer have to constantly think about cooking, I can go back to constantly thinking about eating :)
Celcius and miscellaneous
Let's get the random out of the way first. With three weeks to go, I had decided I do indeed need to get inspiration while I'm here. Sure, I cook amazing stuff, but I need to recalibrate what I think is amazing - so I booked a degustation with Celcius, apparently one of Adelaide's top restaurants. From my research, the head chef there used to work in Noma and Marque and a few others I don't remember off the top of my head. They do, essentially, modern Australian/Contemporary cuisine, which always causes me to giggle as the term is rather akin to what the English language actually is - a mash of other things all in one.First, a picture of some new flower jars at Argo on the Square! I really liked the purple-ness.
I went to a place called Andre's Cucina one night, as apparently there was supposed to be after work drinks hosted by our GM - who didn't appear. So instead I drank water (which everyone disapproved of) before slipping out to eat, as I was starving. With no idea what to eat, I figured I may as well go to this cucina since I found their business card at Paddy's Lantern a while ago. I really had no idea what to expect except that it had polenta, and was a bar. Well, there was amaretto and there was WOW POLENTA SO CREAMY IN SAUSAGE RAGU WITH A HINT OF CHILLI. No picture, but it was definitely a good choice! The polenta was amazing, well flavoured and really great texture.Also, buskers at Central Markets, who I threw money at. I thought they had a cute setup!
NOW ONTO THE GOOD STUFF - my official Celcius entry. I accidentally stumbled past Celcius while getting lost one day, and upon looking at the outside, I noticed that they do the fancy plating that I liked. They also seemed to boast being the best restaurant in Adelaide. Then I saw the degustation menu (5 course and 8 course) and I thought, wow, I should do some research on it. The eye catcher was a vegetable garden dish they had when they first opened - I would have loved to try it, and it really does attract attention. After doing my own cooking and feeling I had reached a level of cooking (sometimes) that was really quite genius, absolutely had to visit and try it out - to compare me vs them vs Quay/Tetsuyas. I finally summoned up the courage to book for myself. Turns out it is actually very difficult and super awkward to do this.I rocked up on a Saturday night, freaking out, this was way scarier than going to the movies by one's self, and borderline plain wrong. I then pretty much oggled the Riedel glasses in front of me and asked for tap water. Which they poured into one of these Riedel glasses. Why do I keep mentioning that they were Riedel? Because Rockpool Bar and Grill - their little introduction on their menu about their glasses has stuck with me, even though I don't remember exactly how many Riedels form their decor. I was marvelling at how thin the walls were and very impressed. I should get myelf some Riedels to serve my coffee in.I was so flustered that I conveniently forgot etiquette when it came to complementary bread. I totally missed the bread plate + knife and used the entree knife! Oops! I didn't notice till I was wondering how I was a knife short and the waiter just kind of rearranged by cutlery.Anyway, actual pictures, description and pseudo-reviews now.First up, the bread. House baked, white sourdough and rye, with apple-smoked butter. I liked the rye better than the sourdough, and I was pleasantly surprised by the smoke butter. It was smoke trapped in a jar with butter - the butter was just the right consistency, and the opening of the jar was fun as the smoke escaped. The butter ended up having a smoky flavour that went really well with the rye - for some reason I didn't get as much of it on the white.
Since I am still clueless when it comes to drinks, I ordered a cocktail which I thought had two alcohols in it, until I asked that I wanted no gin in the drink... which made it non-alcoholic! I thought elderflower liquor meant alchocol... but I guess it was a fancified version of elderflower cordial. So at this point I figured I got it at mocktail price (which was correct at the end). It had aloe, basil seeds and lemon too. Quite nice but very sweet, and reminded me of asian drinks that contain basil seed.
First of the colds/entrees was salmon with pickled ginger, avruga, cucumber balls wrapped in cucumber, nasturtium, watercress, and cucumber and wasabi sorbet. At first glance, I thought, "Quay?" as the presentation I felt was quite similar. Very delicate and fancy. I loved the salt from the avruga in combination with the ginger. The cucumber balls were cute - I'd love to try to make it one day though I feel it causes waste since spheres don't stack without gaps. Though that's probably how the cucumber wasabi sorbet was made. It was actually quite refreshing, but it did burn if I had too much. All in all a standard and pretty starter.
Next, tuna tataki with foie gras, brioche, olive oil, watercress, and dehydrated pork crackling. Wow. So the tuna tataki was what I expected, especially since I can now make it exactly the same way - so the two things that really stood out and impressed me were the foie gras and crackling. The last time I had foie gras (at Marquis) was too rich and heavy so I couldn't finish it. However this one was light and fluffy, and all of it was enough with the crunchy, toasted brioche provided. A great pairing made mind blowingly fantastic with the addition of the pork crackling sprinkling. It added that burst of salt and the general awesomeness that is the crackling, and made the tuna and foie gras that much better.
I didn't expect the next dish to be 1. warm and 2. as.. blobby as it was. Sweetcorn ravioli (3) with ash covered goat cheese, roasted corn, tomato and basil. This was the only dish whose presentation wasn't the same delicate, minimalistic style as the rest of the degustation, however I loved the flavour. Sweetcorn is always a winner with me (incidentally I felt stupid for accidentally undercooking my corn that day - though I did have to move from my apartment to a hotel, so change of cookpot as well as stovetop, so I blame teething XD). This was actually one of my favourite dishes of the night, as the first course was standard, and the second had only 1 element that made it godly (the dehydrated crackling) plus foie gras which always tempts me. The only thing I wished was that the pasta itself was a little less cooked through.
Market fish with squid ink, calamari, watercress, potato and fennel. What cute little potato bits! They were tasty. The fennel was plain roasted, and the fish that day was snapper. Personally, I like my snapper the slightest tad less cooked, but now I know I can go crazy with squid ink if I ever wanted to experiment with it - it's mainly for the colouring and didn't contribute a super fishy flavour (if at all). For me, this was neither here or there as I feel I'm now capable of making something similar (though I wouldn't try and replicate it) except for the sauce, since I am not a sauce master.
I decided to be brave, and finished off my mocktail. Here I ordered a wine - 2008 Murray Street Vineyards "Benno" Shiraz, Mataro (Barossa Valley). From the wine tasting I had at Jacob's Creek in Barossa, I remember liking a mataro they had, so here I ordered it. Since I only know coffee terms, I found it to start of being very bright, but then the aftertaste was very nice. Apparently I had made a good choice, as the couple on the table opposite me wanted to try it too and they were swishing and swirling and smelling and also very impressed by it!Next was duck breast with mushrooms, peas and olive liquorice. The waitress explained that the duck was cooked via sous-vide for 1.5 hours at 57 degrees, before being pan fried to finish it off. Well there we go, always twice cooked duck! I don't feel so bad now :). I was a little concerned as I had some sinew that I had to fight while also trying to look like I was sophisticated and not struggling with cutting the pieces. It was nice, and duck skin is always so tasty. There was a combination of mushrooms there, the peas were blanched so some of them were a struggle to attack with my fork so I ended up scooping them, but what I really liked that I had no preconceptions of, was the olive liquorice. Sweet, salty and olive! I really liked how they made it like that. The duck, well, I reckon I do something similar in terms of how happy eating it makes me feel, though my technique of twice-pan grilling is completely different. And mushrooms are mushrooms.
The last of the mains was suffolk lamb (I suspect the same stuff from Rockpool Bar and Grill) with garlic sauce and roasted vegetables - parsnip, turnip, leek, ad heirloom carrots. The vegetables may have been just barely seasoned, but I didn't mind as I believe vegetables are meant to be eaten with their true flavour (even if I don't like it). Those heirloom carrots were tiny and cute. The lamb itself was amazing with the garlic sauce, though I believe the lamb and garlic aioli my brother had at Rockpool Bar and Grill was better. The jus was well flavoured and peppery and brought the whole thing together. What I was amused with was that the knife had a beetle on the spine! So cute and fancy!
Since this was pretty much going to be my only visit to Celcius, I asked for the optional cheese course. I anticipated gruyere as that was what the menu had said (I think), only it ended up being goats cheese - almost a goat brie. I cringed a little because goats cheese, is like witlof. I have a love/hate/masochistic relationship with it. I love the though of goat cheese but can't stand the flavour. It came with vanilla candied celery which was a mind-trip and a half (but very nice), apple, peeled grape, and toasted brioche crumbs. What can I say, I'm a sucker for cheese plates. The goat cheese was pungent and creamy - would get again as it's my weakness even though I don't like that quantity of goat cheese because of the flavour of goat dairy in general. Would recommend to those who love goat dairy!
The first dessert was lemon curd enrobed in a dome of tempered white chocolate, dehydrated lemon curd shards, blackberry sorbet, blackberry sherbet, blackberry jelly, fresh blackberry, passionfruit meringue, fresh passionfruit, and nasturtiums. Wooooow. I personally loved the jelly and lemon curd shards the best. The curd itself wasn't citrussy enough for me but it was creamy and fluffly, which made up for that fact. With so much blackberry, the white chocolate cut the acidity really well. I didn't realise just how tasty this was until comparing it to the second dessert. Standalone though, while pretty, would have impressed me more if the lemon curd had a little more kick, and say, the theme was raspberries. Also, I couldn't help but be unimpressed with the sherbet as I know the secret to sherbet after making it in science class in high school - but hey, sherbet is sherbet is fun! All in all a fantastic dessert.
Last of all, Peach, raspberry, dehydrated raspberry shards, raspberry mousse, nasturtiums in pastry with chammomile ice cream, white chocolate covered rice puffs and fresh raspberry. I was impartial to the pastry and while the shards were tasty, they were a little hard and sharp so I had to be careful chewing it. Compared to the first dessert, it was rather uninteresting... EXCEPT WOW CHAMMOMILE ICE CREAM YES PLEASE. This was the best ending to the degustation as it was creamy, mellow, tea-like and just such a palate cleanser. It was the definition of "I hope you enjoyed your dinner" and I was very happy with it.
Four hours after starting, I was very happy and very very full. The mains were on average larger than the portions at Tetsuya's and Quay. Celcius seems to focus on minimalistic presentation and very natural, fresh flavours. The waitress also informed me that the chef owns a farm where most of the ingredients are sourced, which I really liked. Nothing better than knowing exactly what goes into the food that makes your food! The atmosphere was very casual as it had a bar component, so people were underdressed in my eyes - but that's normal in Adelaide and makes me feel like a snobby Sydney-sider, not that I really minded. These days I'm glad fine dining is so accessible. This has also made me now really want to go to Sepia, Est and Marque as I want to experience the personality of each restaurant. And continue to inspect their bathrooms haha.To finish off, a piccolo which I knew would be so-so, but I wanted as much of the experience as I could get. Overall it was less than $200 for all of the above, which was so painful but I don't regret any of it, including the tip to top it off at exactly $200. I once read that the top restaurants use tips to re-invest into the restaurants through taking the cooks and waiters to other restaurants to experience the difference and to further be inspired to create awesome food, so I hope Celcius does this too.Next time, I should always see if I can con someone into being my food buddy. The presence of friends definitely would have made my dining experience that much more memorable!
Virtual Valentine
Virtual Valentine
Pomegranate and rose water, coconut and orange blossom water jelly - raspberry sorbet - mint - pistachio crumbs
This is its own post as it really does deserve it. I thought up this dish a few days before Valentine's Day, and really did want a themed dessert. It had to be red and romance-worthy. Hence, it had to have pomegranates because I was in excess of it, and roses. I originally wanted flowers on the plate too, however after doing some research, I didn't want to risk consuming pesticides that would be harmful from buying roses meant as Valentine's Day gifts.
This was my final challenge since I leave Adelaide soon. It's my most epic success yet as everything was made from scratch and done by hand. No ice cream machines, no blenders. As it actually worked, plus it's a dessert so by default, I've kept an ingredient list so that one day, it can be replicated.
Jelly:
Like the above, the gelatine was dissolved in boiling water, and the coconut water heated separately. Orange blossom water was added, and then the finely chopped coconut was added until it looked like a good mix. I actually had a coconut when I thought this recipe up, but for the sake of not having to strain out random coconut bits and to maintain clarity of jelly, I cheated and used bottled coconut water. Would have had the same result, really :P. I kept swirling the mixture in the fridge every now and again, until the solution was starting to set - once the coconut pieces suspended rather than floated, I poured it onto the pomegranate layer. This also meant that the liquid was not hot enough to melt the pomegranate layer.Mint leaves were added at this point for an extra layer of visuals ad flavour. At this stage of jellification the mint leaves could still be pushed to the bottom of the coconut later, so they set perfectly in the middle.
Once fully set, I cut them into rough squares, so that one mint leaf was in each square. Due to the shape of the bottom of these containers, I also had to trim the uneven pomegranate bottom so that each piece was flat.
Sorbet:
Raspberry sorbet
Crumbs:
Pistachio crumb
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
Reine's cooking adventures part 2
I love mussels, so when I found some at another seafood store, I was YES PLEASE. I didn't even know how much to get, so I started with 250g. Turns out this is about 11-12 mussels, and never enough! However when I was reading up on how to cook them, I also grabbed a baguette and butter as a side.I had found a few different liquids suggested, and ended up choosing water first, with some butter. I did make one afterwards with white wine, but funnily enough I preferred the one with water.
When I stumbled across zucchini flowers, wow, I was so filled with creative inspiration that I HAD to buy them. So expensive, but so fantastic that I couldn't resist. I had eaten stuffed flowers at two restaurants, which was not only very appealing, but also very tasty. My favourite was when they were stuffed with crab meat. MMmmmmm!
So, since I didn't want to overdo anything that would kill my budget, I decided I'd make a herb and cheese stuffing instead. So, I bought some ricotta, avocado, goat curd, chives, parsley, pepitas and sunflower seeds. I chopped and toasted the seeds before mixing them in. Cleaning the flowers was tricky at first, but then I learned how to handle them and managed to clean and stuff efficiently.
I also always need protein in my meals, so I opted for salmon as my accompaniment. It was only after I plated just the flowers and the salmon that I filled in the middle with leftover salad, to make it look complete.
It was so pretty and tasty, I declared myself amazing at cooking! And presentation.
