Su-V

On a planned trip to Sydney proper after picking up Aunty Naomi from the Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport we fell apon a spice market in the south of newtown, Fiji Market. We got some sweet gear. And the final haul, that's a nice a spice in no particular order: fennel seeds, nijella seeds, dries chillies, saffron, asofiteda, black cardamom. cardamom, tamarind paste, long pepper, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, and celery seeds.

J

I was under strict instructions to make a pink cake by my daughter. More often than not I find that she is getting what she wants and when my girl wants pink cake well, she gets pink cake. We freestyled the recipe, threw caution to the wind, this time no ratios. We took 4 eggs and whipped to 4x their volume with 350g sugar and then we emulsified 100ml vegetable oil into the sweet eggs. Pureed 200mls natural yogurt with 100g strawberries and kept it aside. Sieved around 450g SR flour onto the egg. Folded in the yogurt until everything just combined. The batter found it's way into a greased tin, in our oven, around 170c for 45min ish. After a quick check on how to make royal icing 2 egg whites, 300g icing sugar a few drops of red. Mixed them all up then applied it to the rested, room temp cake. Finally it was adorned with sugar coated almonds and strawberries. Pink, definitely pink.

Chef has taken to a spot of woodwork over the last week, feverishly sanding and drilling and grilling chunks of Australian hard wood to prepare for the upcoming Sundays 11 course stunner. The dish (or plank) in question is of an Australian theme, as Springwood's own federation day is on the eve of the degustaton. serving kangaroo on a burnt bit of timber seems logical to us. This is what the mock up looked like, a few tweaks here and there and we'll have quite a memorable course on our hands! Aussie green tea in billy, heated underneath with the aide of ceramic hot rocks, confit potato, asparagus, mushroom jus, sous-vide seared kangaroo loin, roasted beetroot, carrot air and pumpkin damper. Aussie Aussie Aussie ... J

So I was thinking beef and guinness pie for dinner I made it happen. Probably over did it on the animal fats but it was worth it. Beef and guinness pie. Filling 1kg diced chuck 2 carrots 1 brown onion 1/2 a leek 3 sticks cellery 5 cloves of garlic 1/4 bunch thyme 100g bacon 100g button mushrooms 200g brussel sprouts 1 tsp vegiemite 10 pitted prunes 3 Tbs tomato paste 2 tsp gravox 500 mms water A shake or two of worshestire sauce 50 grams cornflour Pepper 10 fennel seeds Pastry 100g water 200g dripping 300g plain flour 5g salt Rough chop all root vegetables. Half, salt and set aside brussle sprouts. Puré vegimite, water, prunes, gravox and worcester sauce. Salt and brown beef and set aside. Brown vegetables in oil in a pot big enough to accomidate your beef. Add tomato paste and everything else bar the or brussel sprouts and cornflour and cook out on a low temperature until the chuck is soft. Then make a slurry with the cornflour and water and thicken the filling continue to reduce if n...

I love this little pickle I fell head over heals at faheems fast food many a year ago. They used to buy it in and every now and then you could tell they had changed brands. Some were sweeter and really tacky than others others super sharp and hot! Like a smack in the face. Awesome! Ingredients: 1 kg eggplant preferably small no seeds 4 green chillies ¾ cup oil 2 large cloves of garlic 2 inch piece of ginger 1½ cups sugar 2 tbsp salt 2 tbsp chilli powder 2 tsp cumin seeds ¼ tsp mustard seeds 1 tsp fenugreek seeds 1 tsp turmeric powder A hanfull of curry leaves 2 cups vinegar Method: Wash and cut the eggplants into 1cm pieces and roughly cut green chillys seeds and all. Peel and chop the ginger and garlic coarsely. Soak the spices in vinegar for one hour, then grind with mortar and pestal. Heat oil in a pan. Fry the ground spices and curry leaves till they do not smell raw. Add the sugar, salt, and brinjal and green chillys. Stir well. Cook on low heat till the brinjal is soft and the m...

The art of curry making... There are a few things that you must have before commencing, a good variety of spices, ginger, garlic, onion, tinned tomato, lemons, coconut milk, yogurt, sugar, salt and some fish sauce to name a few. Now spices, the four base spices that I use in most curries are cumin, coriander, paprika and turmeric. Ideally these would be individually roasted whole and ground in a spice grinder or mortar and pastel, use pre ground stuff, I won't mind but it won't taste as good. If using the pre-ground spice toast them in a dry pan before adding, this will release their oils and enable them to break down in the sauce so it doesn't feel grainy. For one person I'd use approximately a level tablespoon of the first 3 and half a tablespoon of turmeric. The basis if most good curry is a paste made from varying amounts of garlic, ginger, chilly and onion pureed with oil and a stick mixer or blender, for one person I'd use approximately half a white onion,...

It was time to sous-vide something, oddly there were some cheeky plums in the cool room downstairs, they were a little tart. With a little corrective seasoning, star anise, cinnamon quills, red wine and a sniff of sherry they were ready to vac. Those plums ended up in 83c water for 14 minutes then paired with vanilla buttermilk pannacota, almond brittle and orange syrup.

At work our new chef's parents came in for the first time to sample their son's restaurant's food, he was prepared for their arrival and came up with the following courses Rice paper roll with coconut tapioca, cashew, prawns poached in tom-yum broth, lemongrass air, cucumber gelee and pineapple Harries cafe adaptation, wagu carpaccio with Caesar pearls olive oil, s & p and alphalpha sprouts? Nitro poached lemonade sphere filled with lemon curd on lemon sherbet. Kwandon, cocoa and coriander crusted venison loin with beetroot sauce, beetroot powder and pickled beetroot. And they finished with banoffy from my previous post.

The last time I calculated I have made at least 2 tonnes of gnocchi over my career. The thing is I still stuff it up every now and then. In this instance I put the gnocchi in the water then went to the cool room to discuss a nitro poached lemonade orb and what to serve it with and how to go about it. By the time I got back to the gnocchi, suffice to say it was tremendously overcooked. Oops. I only lost about 4 portions but still the guilt has not subsided yet.

My lovly wife posted my cookie recipe on her blog so I have blatantly just copied and pasted it, if your not fortunate enough to have seen her blog for yourself must be subscribed to immediately. Oh I love her so... Chocolate and Pecan Cookies 250g butter 50g peanut putter 120g brown sugar 450g plain flour 100g dark chocolate chips 100g pecans, roughly chopped 2 eggs 3 tbs plain yogurt ½ tsp nutmeg ½ tsp all spice Raw sugar for dusting Method: Preheat oven to 165°C Combine the flour and spices in a large bowl and then rub in the butter and peanut butter until combined and sandy. Add the sugar. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs and yogurt and then add it to the rest of the mixture. Fold in the chocolate and pecans. Form heaped teaspoons of the mixture into balls and place on baking trays approx 5cm apart. Flatten slightly and sprinkle with granulated raw sugar. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Nina and I at work mixing the cookies!

I had a thought the other day we should really do something with those bananas in the cool room but my shift was up and ran out of time, although banocchi came to mind and posted my thoughts on face book. The methods I was thinking about were... Sous vide banana puré with methyl cellulose, poached in sweet milk with isomalt caramelized pecans, ln2 malt ice cream pearls and cinnamon air. or polenta made on milk and pureed bananas cut down into gnocchi shapes then baked and added to deep fried cinnamon dusted green bananas in a pecan cream grated agar chocolate Chantilly or something of the like. fortunately it's my day off and I didn't have to pursue the thought. I got a mms from Chef saying 'banocchi' with a corresponding picture he must have read my status or it was a crazy coincidence and took the proverbial ball and ran with it. Nice one! banana gnocchi banana foam berry pudding maple stock micro herbs A new recruit arrived today also on a quest for culinary gre...

We had a chance to try out an Alinea glass recipe using nh pectin. We used berry juice flavored with rose, heated then blitzed in the pectin, brought back up to simmer for half a minute then cooled, re heated, poured onto acetate sheet, dehydrated then removed from the sheets and re-dehydrated for another four hours or so. Ready. Glass in the dehydrator.