A Few of My Favourite Things !

On a (now) rare Friday night off, A & I decided to go bar hopping, kind of. We started off at La Vita Buona Cellar, part of the City Sqaure troika along with Three Below and Caboose Restaurant. We sat down with the noisy, after-work crowd to enjoy a glass of champagne and shiraz accompanied simply by french fries with aioli (just to stave off those hunger pangs). After catching each other up on our day, we took a walk down Flinders Lane towards Spring Street when I had the brilliant idea of checking out the Press Club Bar. And what a good thing too! We ordered some drinks (Shiraz & Sauvignon Blanc) and sharing plates from the bar menu and we were delighted with each offering.

It was a struggle to get photos with my camera given the lighting in the bar but these will have to do. The white taramasalata made with creme fraiche came with fried pita bread – so moreish! The dish behind the dip also appears to be served at George’s new Hellenic Republic restaurant – peppered fig on fried haloumi. I loved the peppered fig but, overall, preferred the other two.

I can’t remember how they termed this dish in the menu but it was basically an octopus & boccarone skewer coated with pistachio praline.

We then adjourned to Longrain for some after dinner cocktails (Soho La & Lychee Martini) and yet more little dishes – the son-in-law eggs and betel leaf topped with smoked trout, garlic, chilli, galangal & trout roe. If I thought the lighting at the Press Club gave me difficulties with photos, they were impossible at Longrain…so no images of the food, just memories of deliciousness.

La Vita Bouna
City Square, Melbourne
96547855

Longrain
44 Lt Bourke St, Melbourne
9671 3151

Just a quick photo-less update on our New Year’s Eve celebrations for today. We invited some close friends around for dinner and drinks to usher in 2007.

To start with, we dipped into smoky babaganoush flavoured with lemon juice, salt and pepper then lightened with a dollop or two of sheep’s yoghurt. This was accompanied by homemade pinenut and parmesan wafers that tasted actually better on their own than with the dip.

Unsure of how many would turn up early for dniner, I prepared the ever delicious chicken, olive and preserved lemon tagine using our own preserved lemons, a lamb, nut and rice dish, stewed chickepeas, duck bisteeya and basmati rice scattered with jewel-like dried cherries, apricots, pistachios and slivered almonds.

I chose to replace pigeon with duck in the bisteeya so that I could purchase an already roasted duck from Chinatown instead of cooking the fowl from scratch – a useful time-saving measure. The chickpeas were stewed for over an hour with onions, garlic and cumin, rendering them exquisitely and meltingly tender.

For dessert, we enjoyed baclava, bought from our usual place on Sydney Road, and cheese from Simon Johnson, including a Roquefort, a pungent ewe’s milk blue cheese, Livarot, a soft washed-rind cheese made of cow’s milk, and my favourite, a Beaufort. The latter is a Gruyere-style, hard cheese made from cow’s milk and this one had a streak of blue mould running through.

We almost managed to see the fireworks from the living room but our plans were thwarted by the presence of a single tall building that managed to block most of the action. At least we had the television though…

Hope that you have all enjoyed the festive season and are looking forward to a blessed New Year!

I’ve always wanted to try cooking with zucchini flowers but I’ve also always chickened out at the last minute. Not today though. Today, we visited the Abootsford Convent market and we happened to stop by one of the stalls to ask if they were selling mulberries. Only ones that had gone mouldy unfortunately but they did have zucchini flowers, 10 heads of which came home with us.

What to do with them though? We didn’t have any ricotta or fetta but I remembered some home-made babaganoush and parmagiano reggiano sitting in the fridge. So, our zucchini flowers were filled with a mixture of these two ingredients before being battered and fried. A sprinkle of fleur de sel from Ginny together with some lemon wedges on the side and voila! Serve and eat immediately!

While the boys were enjoying the zucchini flowers, I prepared the salad. While browsing at a book sale a couple of days ago, I was instantly smitten by the beauty of Julie Le Clerc’s cookbook ‘Taking Tea in the Medina’. The vibrant photo of this particular cucumber and fennel salad scattered with torn mint leaves and pomegranate seeds made me buy the book. Thumbs up for this salad. The pomegranate seeds are a little pale but they were revived from the depths of our freezer so you will have to forgive them for looking a little anaemic.

I also grilled some chicken thighs which had been marinated in a Jamaican Jerk spice mix for about 30 min. The thighs were basted with a sauce of brandy, lime and more of the spice mix while grilling. Serve with a wedge of lime.

Battered Zucchini Flowers

3 egg yolks
2-3 tbs flour
1/2 cup cold mineral water

3 egg whites

1. Remove stamen from centre of flower, wash gently in cold water and pat dry
2. Fill flowers with mixture of babaganoush and shaved parmagiano reggiano
2. Beat the egg yolks with flour. Season with salt & pepper then add mineral water and mix until smooth
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into egg yolk mixture.
4. Dip flowers into batter and shallow fry for a few minutes on each side until golden brown.
5. Sprinkle with salt and serve, with a side of lemon wedges, straight away

The only kids running around our place are our two darlings. Well, sometimes A & I behave like kids too so I figured that we could legitimately join the Kid’s Party that Stephanie is hosting for Blog Party #14. The idea is to create cocktail foods, by which Stephanie has described as finger foods, dippers or mini meals. I guess this would count as finger food as this wouldn’t make a meal for anyone whatever size it came in.

I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to use my new cookie cutters and what better way than to create puff patry animals that kids would love. After cutting out the shapes, I sprinkled smoked paprika and grated gruyere over the top before baking. Very moreish even just by themselves but if I had to suggest a drink to accompany these little bites, can I suggest something we made as kids? Cold lemonade with fresh cherries bobbing on top!

I suppose I should call them Puff Pastry Animals & Boys but as boys can sometimes be little animals too, I’ve just lumped them together. Is that bad?

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