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.

Apothecary 1878

So I've been looking for a replacement for Rockpool Bar and Grill, thinking I'd never find one, but lo and behold, after strolling down a dodgy-looking part of the city on a Sunday afternoon, I ran across a little treasure-looking-like place. That's when I found out that it was a cute little wine bar that has all Victorian decor, and does high tea on Saturdays!So I did a little research on it, and apparently it won best wine list in South Australia (cause Rockpool wins for Australia!). Plus they don't advertise their list online, so I had to visit. My expectations were: giant wine list, and servings by the half glass, and was secretly hoping for varietal specific Riedels.Of course, when I got there, they do indeed have a noteworthy wine list! Plenty of quotes throughout, as well as a Provenance to read through. Except... the list was much much smaller than I expected. Maybe 20 pages? I'm sorry, but I wanted a Rockpool-thick encyclopedia! They did have a great range of 75mL "tasters", served in baby Riedels, which made me happy. Plus they were incredibly cheap at $5 - $5.50 per serving, considering at Rockpool I'm paying $16 for 75mL for their reserve stuff.And while they don't serve burgers, they do have a highly respectable bar menu much like Rockpool Bar and Grill, with excellent presentation and great range.

Goat curd, pink peppercorns and honey toast

The pink peppercorns made these little toasts super tasty, and the honey offset the goat curd nicely. They were a little expensive at $4 each, but it is goat curd, plus pink peppercorns, so yes, I will always order these! And make it myself one day.

Cured salmon with radish and white gazpacho

I can't remember exactly what the gazpacho was made of, but I was anticipating like, cured salmon in soup. But this was more like grilled salmon on sauce. It was so tasty as it was seasoned just right, and those are some amazing radishes! I want ones like that as they are very pretty.

Lamb backstrap with almonds and split pea puree

It is so hard to find lamb backstrap, and when I do, it's expensive. This was tasty and the puree was awesome mixed with the lamb!

They also have amazing prosciutto with this fennel pretzel thing, tasty olives and have a balmain/moreton bug dish - I was just too lazy to take pictures of them.

When it came to dessert, they had a few cheese options. I had a white mould cheese but it was sharper than I liked; I wanted something earthy and mushroomy. Nevertheless, I love cheese and enjoyed it.

Dark chocolate mousse with toasted coconut marshmallows, and cherries

I couldn't resist a second round of dessert and had to get their special. I loved the mousse but had a little giggle when I was taking pictures because of how the quenelles of mousse looked! I also thought that toasted coconut marshmallows would look like standard toasted coconut marshmallows, but no, these were different and snowy! I wanted more of it!

This place makes me miss Rockpool Bar and Grill so much - in fact it's the only reason I want to go back to Sydney. I want my 75mLs in full, varietal specific Riedels, not baby Riedels! While the two have a very similar classy atmospheres, Rockpool Bar and Grill is overall busier and louder, which I like. Both places have exceptional waitstaff, who remember things without writing them down and both magically refill water!

I love being asked if I want another drink; too bad a lot of cafes don't ask me this when I'm by myself. I need a sign above my head saying "ASK ME IF I WANT ANOTHER COFFEE".

So after this and Celcius, I must find more places to blog about!

... And I need to find people to drag here on a regular basis.

Black and white magic + deconstruction

So today I was coffeeing it up and decided to try and see if I could order a "magic" and see if it would work. But of course, being the coffee nub that I am, it managed to backfire.I thought I was cool by asking, "if I ordered a magic, what would you give me?"And was uncooled by the barista's response of, "black or white?"MIND BLOWN!Now that I know, it sounds twice as awesome as before, but who would ever want to walk up to the counter and say, "I'd like a white magic please." I mean, black magic is just so much cooler, though I don't think I could handle one of them. Not unless it was the most amazing beans mmmmmmm.In any case, it's just as cool  to say "double ris three quarter flat white" very quickly because it makes you sound amazing PLUS the barista will understand it just fine.And one day I might make the following:Deconstructed Apple PieElderflower jelly, cinnamon apple sauce, fresh apple mince, dehydrated raspberry bits and shortbread crumbs, sugar crystal topped shortbread, fresh elderflowers.I really need to do a deconstruction one day.

Cafe Sydney + a lifetime worth of coins

Went to Cafe Sydney last night because I love the food there. I was hoping to spend a lot but we ended up spending not a lot at all, however everything they cook is amazing - plus it's one of my favourite vantage points of the harbour. As I'm tired, I'm just going to picture spam.

Wagyu tartare with poached egg

Game terrine with foie gras

Coffin Bay octopus

Grilled prawns

Tandoori ocean trout

Wagyu tenderloin, short rib, marrow, mushrooms

Chocolate fondant with poached strawberries, fresh raspberries, strawberry ice cream, raspberry crumb

I also cashed in pretty much all the coins I had saved up (including the shinies!) which was quite fun to do, it made a racket and turns out I had a LOT more coins than I thought. No wonder it was all so heavy! This was what the machine counted:

AUD 0.05: 49 ($2.45)

AUD 0.10: 374 ($37.40)

AUD 0.20: 420 ($84.00)

AUD 0.50: 5 ($2.50)

AUD 1.00: 9 ($9.00)

AUD 2.00: 15 ($30.00)

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Shinies + burger

So it turns out it's not a good idea to watch a lot of shows with men in shiny suits, because spending money on suits as a hobby turns out to be really, really expensive! It also means I've acquired skills that I can't really use myself. It turns out there are only 85 ways to tie a tie, so I should learn what the shorthand means and memorise them all, not.So here's a shiny dump plus a gigantic burger called the Big Moo from Moo Burgers. I wish I had better lighting but THIS IS ALL YOU GET.

LIME HARVESTER