A Few of My Favourite Things !

An oldie that I’d forgotten about (blush)…

Chickpeas and chorizo are not the most asian of ingredients are they? but they do cook well in the old claypot regardless!

We were facilitating The Marrige Preparation Course a couple of weekends ago which meant that I needed to prepare a quick and easy lunch that could be had between a couple of the sessions that were being held on Sunday. I took inspiration from a recipe Matt posted late last year, one that had been on my mind since that time, and threw together a chickpea and chorizo hotpot.

Using my trusty chinese claypot, I fried the chorizo with some garlic and onion, added some passata, tin of chickpeas and some spices then simmered for 20 minutes. It was as easy as Matt had promised and absolutely delicious with crusty white bread. Best of all, the claypot made it easy to transport.

This place deserves a post of its own. Serving the kind of food that we travel for, Ibu Oka in Ubud is patronized by locals as well as tourists. They do one dish and they do it incredibly well – Babi Guling. You point to what everyone else on the communal table is having and it’s plated and served in about two minutes flat. Help yourself to the prawn crackers in the basket and everything just gets tallied up at the end of your meal.

Too good and had us licking our lips for the rest of the trip. It’s a pity we didn’t get to go back for seconds =(

Breeze: Just stopped for drinks here one evening to see the sunset but too cloudy…

Cafe Warisan: Reputedly the best French and most romantic restaurant in Bali if you believe the Luxe Guide. Go during the day if you want to see the rice paddies although I’m sure the food is great either day or night! Be warned however that the whole crew is moving to Mentis in September 200. Warisan will continue trading under a different owner with different cuisine.

Scallops with seared foie, shimeji, puy lentils and sherry jus – just awesome! Easily the dish of the night.

Crab millefeille, crab emulsion, leek, soft shell crab tempura – pretty good too

Sole Meunière, creamed spinach, potato – hhhmmmmm, I really expected more from this dish.

La Moelluex- okay, I recently made one that beat the pants off this!

Nammos Beach Club at Karma Kandara: Wow, a private beach where you have to pay for entry – that’s something that Aussies are just NOT used to. However, I have to say that the view of the Indian Ocean was stupendous and I would definitely do it again!

Something special…sigh!

Isn’t this photo convincing enough? The ride there is a little bumpy but I’m still wondering how much it costs per night to wake up to this:

Bumbu Bali: The kind of place where they all greet you when you arrive (kinda like the “Irrashaimase” of Japanese restaurants) and place a frangipani behind your ear. Go only if you want to feel like a tourist because the food ain’t worth it.

ONe more post to go after this…

So it’s been a few weeks since our return from a one-week break in Seminyak, Bali but I haven’t posted about any of the food we ate, although there a pictures aplenty. Of course, I know this means I will probably have forgotten the names of most of the dishes, my mind being the sieve that it is. However, I shall do my best to recall them. We based our choice of restaurants/cafes on friends’ recommendations, reviews and the Luxe Guide and there were hits and there were misses and there were dishes in-between. I think I shall just make it a chronological review so here goes:

Made’s Warung: Apparently a visit to one of the two Warung Made (Kuta or Seminyak) is compulsory for all visitors. They serve a mix of international and Indonesian foods. It was more than passable but we tried to pick places that concentrated more specifically on Indonesian food after this.

Nasi Campur

Rujak

Lumpiah

Venue @ the Moon: About three shops up from our hotel, The Kayana, so it was easy to grab takeaway. Their food was some of the best we had in Bali!

Kuta Mall: We just had to take a peek, and really that’s all it was. We dropped by at the mall in Kuta and did a little bit of shopping. Enjoyed the humidity while watching the waves rolling in and enjoying a plate of garlicky prawns.

Grocer & Grind: No food photos but a really cool place to hangout if you’re missing home.

More to come in the next installation…

Okay, maybe I’ve been looking at too many A-frames of late but this one really puzzled me. I initially thought that they had misspelled prosciutto but it seemed TOO wrong to be wrong, if you know what I mean. A quick query to the waitress and we were told “It’s like ham but halal”. I tried googling but to no avail so if anyone can enlighten me as to what ‘pusitto’ is, I’d be much obliged.

I made a batch of pasta sauce for my boys on the weekend and was putting labels on freezer containers when I suddenly stopped writing and wondered, is bolognese spelt ‘bolognese’ or ‘bolognaise’? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen both version and agonized several minutes over which was correct. Now that I’m typing it in, my spell check is indicating that the latter is incorrect.

That reminds me of the many cafe and restaurant chalkboards that misspell menu items. Here’s one from Equinox Cafe/Bar that made me stop short yesterday as I first spotted their version of this tuna salad.

We were standing at the counter of Almost French, ordering hot cross buns and almond croissants when our reveries of afternoon tea were interrupted by the entrance of the unmissable Alannah Hill. After ordering half a dozen hot cross buns, she turned her attention to another version of hot buns – you know the ones that come in a pair of cool blue jeans…

She very casually introduced herself as ‘Alannah…Alannah Hill. I’m a designer’. Then quickly moved into ‘You’re very good-looking. I think I’m going to pick you up’.

Completely distracted by the scene playing out in front of us, I could barely respond to the waitress’ question of ‘Is there anything else?’ until Alannah had left her number with the guy and driven off in her black Merc.

Almost French
138 Swan St, Richmond 3121
Ph: (03) 9429 2080
Open 7am-5pm Mon-Sat

Another clipped out recipe made! This one is from Gourmet Traveller September 2008, a dessert served at The Connaught. It’s a little more complicated than your average brownie but is also well worth the effort. It consists of three layers and is definitely not a one bowl kinda dessert.

The bottom layer is a moist chocolatey brownie studded with walnuts (macadamias if you follow The Connaught), the middle is caramelised banana slices and this is all topped with a dark (milk in the original) chocolate mousse. Here’s what it looks like:

I wanted to gift a few of these to a friend whose parents are visiting from Sweden but the brown paper casing had become saturated with oil from the butter. So, I picked up some cute fabric from Lincraft to wrap around the individual cases. One cake also went to a neighbor who is celebrating her birthday this week. That leaves two one for us!

Chocolate & Walnut Brownie

200g butter
100g dark chocolate
3 eggs
210 caster sugar
100g plain flour
100g walnuts, coarsely chopped

1. Melt butter & chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth.
2. Whisk eggs & caster sugar until thick & pale, fold through the chocolate mixture, then fold in flour and walnuts.
3. Spoon into individual paper cases & bake until just firm to touch (15-20 min). Cool completely

1 tbs finely grated ginger
2 bananas, sliced
100g brown sugar

1. Heat brown sugar in a large frying pan over medium-high heat until melted (2-3 min)
2. Add ginger, stir to combine, then add bananas in a single layer and cook, turning occasionally, until caramelised and tender.
3. Arrange on top of brownie, squashing to make a uniform layer & leave to cool.

2 eggs
55 g caster sugar
3/4 tsp gelatine, dissolved in small amount of very hot water
5g Pavlova Magic (or eggwhite powder)
300ml thick cream
200g dark chocolate, melted & cooled slightly

1. Whisk eggs & sugar in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until thick * can hold a ribbon (10-12 min). Remove from heat.
2. Whisk in gelatine & Pavlova Magic powder.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk cream until soft peaks form. Add melted chocolate and fold to combine then fold in egg mixture.
4. Spoon mousse over caramelised banana and refrigerate until set (2-3 hr).

I love flicking through magazines and newspapers looking at recipes but I rarely clip them out because I know that I’m not likely to get around to trying it out. However, I love banana cake and when I saw Patrick Craig’s Caramelised Banana cake recipe in one of the Melbourne papers (I forget which), it sounded so good that I had to tear it out. This was in July last year and I have only just made it today, but I DID actually get around to making it – woohoo!

This isn’t your everyday banana cake as it does include the addition of pineapple pieces, as you would find in a Hummingbird Cake. However, I couldn’t find any cans of pineapple pieces in the pantry so I decided to swap it with lychee instead. Now, that probably sounds strange initially because I certainly haven’t ever seen a banana cake with lychee before but it actually works really well as the flavours are not too dissimilar.

So, onto the recipe itself:

1. Combine 2.5 cups plain flour, 1.5 cups caster sugar, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, 2 tsp baking powder, 1.5 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt
2. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk 5 eggs and add 1.5 cups olive oil then add to dry mixture
3. In a hot pan (no butter, no oil), quickly caramelise 2.5 cups chopped banana pieces & 400g lychee pieces
4. Add fruit to cake mixture & pour into 22cm round cake tin (or a loaf tin & some muffin caese!)
5. Bake at 180C for 30 min or until cooked through (I had to bake for 50-60min).
6. Serve with whipped cream (or ice cream)

We had to dodge puddles to get there but we did make it to the Connex Sizzle yesterday. Not great weather for a BBQ but good news for people with prams as we didn’t have to weave our way through heavy crowds and contend with dirty looks.

We purchased a $35 ticket for 4 tasting plates and I already knew which 4 dishes I wanted to try.

This was A’s selection as he had heard so many good things about Maha – the Lamb Kebab by Shane Delia. Pretty tasty but not much about this particular kebab would induce me to pick it over a roadside or cheap cafe kebab.

Mmmm, this Bebere Marinated Chicken, Smoked Tomato, Cucumber & MInt Salad in Pita Bread by Matt Wilkinson of Circa was really yummy. They could have done me a favour by using less fatty chicken. I’m not usually someone who fastidiously picks away every bit of skin but I estimate that I pulled off about 20% of each chicken piece.

By far the most disappointing of the four, I had had such high hopes for Teage Eqard’s BBQ Char Siu Pork with Plum Sauce and Marinated Beanshoots but it failed to convert. I found the pork just that side of overdone and lacking in flavour, especially since the name had my mouth watering at the thought of real char siu. A pity as there was a big push on pork products at the festival with a 2-for-1 offer that was being handed out by the lovely ladies.

Whoa!!! Dallas Cuddy of Verge’s Miso Marinated Prawn with Salad of Soba Noodles, Spring Onions and Ponzu was the absolute pick of the bunch. I could have eaten this ten times over, no joke, and I even crunched down the tail, shell & all. Even my one year old couldn’t stop munching on the prawns and slurping down the soba.

We also managed to drag (!) ourselves down for Wicked Sunday today however I have to say that having been here twice now, this event just doesn’t excite me. I love chocolate, I love cakes, I love gelati but…y’know how it is when you just feel…well, nothing. There are heaps of coffee stalls so this is heaven for any coffee connoisseurs, but still how many cups can one person have? I guess some more than others! What I can say is that I LOVED the way St Ali set up their stall:

and also, this could get REALLY confusing…