A Few of My Favourite Things !

Right on term at 38 weeks, EJ arrived on the morning of Tuesday 19 February weighing 6lb5oz. We are blissfully enjoying his presence despite the interrupted sleep - I just can’t take my eyes off him!

On our way home from Bright a couple of weekends ago, we stopped at Seymour to fill up. As we were finishing up at the service station, a ute laden with fresh farm produce pulled up next to us. How could we resist the temptation of purchasing the just-picked fruit that was on its way to the market?

We bought peaches, nectarines, plums, grapes…then A. spotted the green & black figs in a corner. The farmer told him that the figs would be a little more expensive than the stone fruit - $6.00/kg. What with places around Melbourne CBD sell figs at $20-25/kg, this is a bargain!

My search for a fresh fig recipe led me to a Brigitte Hafner recipe which I would love to submit for the The Mini Pie Revolution, however having misplaced the cable for downloading photos from my camera I am late, late, late for this event.

I’ll share the photos and recipe with you anyway. The pies, baked in mini tart pans, look and taste great especially with a dollop of King Island cream (or the vanilla bean yoghurt for those watching their waist) or good vanilla icecream.

Pastry:

100g unsalted butter
100g caster sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
70g almond meal
200g plain flour
pinch of salt

1. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the egg and yolk. Mix well.
2. Incorporate almond meal, flour and salt to form a dough. Gently knead to form a smooth ball but be careful not to overwork the dough.
3. Divide into 4 portions, wrap and refrigerate for 30 min
4. Roll out each portoin of dough to 5mm thickness and line the bottom of the tart tin. Prick the base and freeze for 30 min
5. Blind bake for 12-15 min at 180C, then cool

Filling:

1.5 cups cream
zest of 1/4 orange
1 bay leaf
1 egg

1. Bring the first 3 ingredientsto a boil then simmer for 5min until reduced by 1/2
2. Remove from heat and add 2 tbs brown sugar. Allow to cool.
3. Whisk in 1 large egg.

Tart:

1. Line the pastry base with fresh figs.
2. Pour over cream mixture
3. Bake for 25 min at 175C
4. Cool and serve!

Ever since I saw these Horlicks cookies here, I’ve been dying to make them. With Chinese New Year coming up and it being the Year of the Rat, I decided to go with a modified look to suit the theme.

Using Umbrella Cookies (also known as Pigs Ears cookies I am told) for the ears was a good idea in theory but much harder to put into practice as they didn’t want to stay on. I also tried using pink chocolate chips for the nose but they turned brown in the oven but the gel icing worked out well instead. I made a half batch of rat cookies then decided to be lazy and make normal ones with the rest of the batter!

Wishing you you very happy and prosperous year.

We don’t have a tradition of celebrating Shrove Tuesday or have an actual need to use up ingredients before Lent but as A. is an ardent lover of pancakes, I made some in honour of this day.

The pancake (yes, just a single one as he was rushing to a meeting) was served with some strawberries that we had picked up from a farmer was filling up at a Seymour service station at the same time and honey from the Milawa Mustard store.

PS- try not to acciddentally shake in too much bicarb soda or the batter will be bitter!

I am currently reading “Choice Cuts: a miscellany of food writing” edited by Mark Kurlansky and I had to share this poem by Emile Roumer with you.

I’m not sure whether I would feel entirely flattered to be the recipient of this type of poetry but to each his/her own, I suppose

High-yellow of my heart, with breasts like tangerines,
you taste better to me than eggplant stuffed with crab,
you are the tripe of my pepper-pot,
the dumpling in my peas, my tea of aromatic herbs.
You are the corned beef whose customhouse is my heart,
my mush with syrup that trickles down my throat.
You are a steaming dish, mushrooms cooked with rice,
crisp potato fries, and little fish fried brown…
My hankering for love follows you wherever you go.
Your bottom is a basket full of fruits and meat.

- translated from the French by John Peale Bishop, c. 1930

Sometimes you need a reliable and safe recipe that doesn’t require much preparation. This was certainly the case last week when I needed to organise lunch for the TMPC crowd. I’m in the middle of getting ready for our move so I didn’t really have time to cook anything that was going to take too much time or effort. Fortunately, these two dishes worked out really well although it was the first time I had tried either!

I flicked through some recipe books and finally settled on an easy Chicken & Mushroom Bake recipe. All you need to do for this is saute some onions, brown some chicken pieces then place these two ingredients in a tray with some mushrooms, condensed cream of mushroom (or chicken) soup, water and some cream. Bake at 190C for 60 to 90 min until the chicken is tender.

Dessert was equally easy to make. Layer sliced panettone drizzled with cranberry juice with berries and cream.

Lau’s Family Kitchen is run like a yum cha restaurant - two sittings per night at 6pm and 8pm. The noise levels are much like a yum cha restaurant too but the service is infinitely more attentive. In fact, if you have been to Flower Drum you will not be surprised by the wait staff to table ratio and they really seem to care about how you are finding the meal.

We started our night off with a few of their entrees. The steamed vegetable wontons with seasonal vegetables were passable but the wonton skin should have been thinner and less chewy. The fried eggplant filled with taro paste more than made up for the sub-par wontons however. You won’t find lamb springrolls on many chinese menus and I, for one, can understand why. It reminded us more of a Middle Eastern pastry like sambousek.

Our mains were served like a banquet, dishes coming out one after another. The steamed snapper was my pick of the night. Divinely tender and light, no bones to deal with - ahhhh! This was accompanied by the stir-fried seasonal vegetables consisting of snowpeas, cloud ear mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, bok choy…fresh and crisp. Many chinese restaurants tend to overcook the vegetables and use too much oil but Lau’s version was perfect.

I was getting pretty full by this stage but there was still the panfried Patagonian Toothfish and Sweet Vinegared Pork Loin. The slow-growing Patagonian Toothfish (aka Chilean Seabass) is prone to being overfished so the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) closely manages commercial fishing to ensure its sustainability. Aside from wanting to support the protection of endangered species, this fish is tasty enough that we wouldn’t want it to disappear altogether.

We expected the pork loin to be more like a braised dish but it was more like a stir-fry served with a gravy. Too salty for my tastebuds but A. thought it was pretty good.

A huge thumbs up from us for this place. Unbeatable service, lovingly cooked food that is fresh and light, no signs of cornflour thickened sauces here - make your booking now

We stopped for breakfast at Cafe Andiamo on our way home from a long walk along the Yarra River this morning. An order for poached eggs on toast was placed with our waiter but what came out could have passed for hard boiled…

A. says that cafes which cannot cook eggs shouldn’t be serving breakfast. I suspect that Jamie would agree wholeheartedly.

Cafe Andiamo
36 Degraves St
Melbourne 3000 VIC
Phone: (03) 9650 8060

Santa should come see me when he is need of someone to guide his sleigh. All my reindeers seem to be named Rudolph.

A. thought that these reindeers were far to merry looking to be eaten. The hardest part about making these were getting the pretzels to break in the right spots. Between A & I, we managed to waste more than half a pack of pretzels that didn’t look right for the antlers!