Sunnybrae Restaurant and Cooking School

Oocytes and Loose Living

2012-01-16T14:25:00.005+11:00

Its wonderful how ingredients can trigger memories...
Have you noticed these unusual bunches of raw egg yolks at the market? They come in a small bucket of about 30. They are called Oocytes, the unlaid egg yolks from laying hens dressed for the market. I love the parallel culinary path that ingredients take in different cultures. I can remember shopping for these with my mother at the kosher butchers in St.Kilda and they were used in our home for cooking chicken soups in a similar way that the Vietnamese from whom these were bought in Footscray, use them.
My mother also used them for cakes and noodle dishes. I haven't bought them for ages but thought they might provide a comforting accent to a dish of farmed prawns that we have been serving as the opening course on the menu. I usually avoid cooking Asian dishes here but I could not resist this salad of green papaya, green mango, kohlrabi and daikon all giving a moist crunch with different flavours that are echoed in the dressing of the classic lime scented Thai trinity. Perilla, Holy basil, mint and coriander complete the aromatics.
While cooking at the Grace Darling Hotel in Collingwood in the late seventies we served a dish mentioned in Lampedusta's novel The Leopard, Timballo del Gattopardo an exquisite suede-like textured extravagance of chicken livers, cinnamon, pasta and many more goodies that also use these rich yolks in a spectacular pasta pie or Timballo.
Books can convey such a deep culinary resonance especially if they are not specifically about cooking. Food in a real context. One of the reasons that I have not been posting lately [the other is laziness] is that I have been reading and also re-reading much of Frank Moorhouse's work. Few writers can capture the mores and foibles of the table like Moorhouse. I have spoken of his book Loose Living before and when he agreed to come to Sunnybrae for a Melbourne Food and Wine Festival event this year we were thrilled and excited to soon have our hero here in person. Six spots left for March 18 click here for Details.
A Taste of Summer in the Garden

Behind the Scenes

2011-12-01T21:37:00.006+11:00

A glimpse of a little of what’s been happening behind the scenes here on

the farm.

In February we had to make some changes as the farmer who has been agisting his cattle here for many years found himself like all the farms in the district with more than enough feed in his own pastures to take his cows home.... I have been a little lazy with this cosy arrangement for many years but the change gave us an opportunity to see what could be done with the land that fits into our other culinary pursuits. I have been a little obsessed with bread over the last 7 years or so since the wood oven was built experimenting with different flours and grains and realised that I knew bugger all about wheat.

But then I did not know much about artichokes and many other food plants till we began to grow them. The link between the garden and the kitchen is strongest when you can see, sample and taste food plants as they develop so a bit of bullet biting was required. We needed to grow something that could be managed efficiently and able to be stored safely as well as providing a staple-like role on our menus.

The first workshop we conducted with the wood oven just prior to our re-opening in 2008 was with John Downes and for one of those workshops we sourced about 25 different types of flours that could only be bought in 10 or 20kg bags. After the workshops I had an arsenal of commercial and artisan flours left over with which to learn how to use the new oven. Amongst the more interesting flour that was left was the Khorasan [Kamut] and Spelt and these seemed to elicit the most interest from our diners. I am slowly getting to understand how they can be used in the kitchen. I hope to entice John down again next year to conduct a couple of workshops on grains.

So a leap into the unknown was made last May when I approached our neighbour Don Liggerwood. Don has a large model farm and seed growing/cleaning business about 3km from here down the Cape Otway Road. I must have hit a resonance because Don very quickly embraced the concept with much enthusiasm. Both spelt and Khorasan are hard to find seeds in large quantities but some serendipitous convergence gave us a chance to begin this experiment. The strike rate has been excellent, the rains so far kind and { I hope I don’t put a mozz on it } the crop is growing magnificently despite the recent heavy downpours. Watching a new plant develop is exciting. As the shots grew the central stalks shoot up and before you know it they have self pollinated and the ears fill out providing a carpet of swaying fields that change colour each month.

The most striking difference in the look of the two crops is the height and vigour of the Khorasan. Its tall with a massive seed head and a very long beard. The long beard I have read is to make it more difficult for the birds to get at the seeds. The spelt is shorter and a quiet achiever with denser growth, very sturdy and less likely to lodge[fall over ]. About 3 months after Don did the planting he rang and nonchalantly mentioned that he bought a second hand flour mill in pieces that is specified to process 250kg per hour! So the kit up is complete when Don figures out how to put it back together again.

Then we should have fresh flour and seeds to continue the experiment....

The other new crop developing is a few Pistachio trees that we planted in 2007 as we were getting the garden ready for re-opening. After 4 years they are full of immature nuts that should be ready in February. For those of you taking a stroll between courses have a look under the trees in the orchard and you will see hundreds of tomatillo, tomato, cucumber, pumpkin and other seedlings from the compost that has been spread below all the trees in the orchard.

We have upped the ante with the compost making.

We get our eggs from Annete and Stuart Rayner’s free range egg farm about 2km down the Cape Otway Road next door to Liggerwood’s and they have a brilliant industrial sized mulcher. For the last 2 years we have asked them to construct a composting shelter from their last year’s straw and we make compost inside this slowly using the straw for layering the organic waste. When the pile is complete the bales are gone and Stuart shreds it and it erupts into a Jeff Koons-like Puppy sculpture of Pumpkins, Melons and all the rest of the seeds that have sprouted from the kitchen and garden “waste”.

Its sits for a year to ferment and when it’s spread under the fruit trees the second coming of the self seeded windfall begins again. This year the straw will come from our paddocks after the quail get their fair share. I saw one take off from the middle of the Kamut yesterday.. not sure how I will feel about letting the guns in. Good I think.

Play with Fire or Sans Sous Vide

2011-10-18T14:42:00.010+11:00

On our first visit to France and we found ourselves in Hauterives on a pilgrimage to see the Palais Ideal the work of a retired postman who spent most of his life building a do it yourself concrete folly--Think Ankor Wat meets the Sagrada Famiglia. After a mind blowing morning wandering around this extraordinary site we decided to walk to the next village in search of lunch. Its the classic French dream a small bistro on the edge of the town. Fresh mirabelle tart on the scrubbed pine presentation table, flowers, thunderstorm then sunshine and a new menu to explore. We order quenelles de brochet sauce Nantua, a local Marsanne then the tart.... walk to the hotel-- France at its best. The next day we are at yet another bistro and the temptation to try the local speciality again is too great to resist. By some miracle the dish is exactly the same as the previous day—you’ve got it by now. The first wave of the sous vide revolution is at its peak in France. In the seventies sous vide cooking hit France by storm. "Georges Pralus in the mid-1970s working with the Restaurant Troisgros (of Pierre and Michel Troigros) in Roanne, France who were looking for a new way to to cook foie gras, which shed 30 to 50 percent of its original weight in cooking. Pralus found that when cooking foie gras using Sous Vide techniques its original appearance did not lose excess amounts of fat and had better texture."

"Bruno Goussault was working along the same lines in the 1970's, but instead at an industrial level. In 1974, Goussault worked on a study that was presented on the sous vide cooking of beef shoulder at an international frozen-foods conference in Strasbourg, France. It was found that cooking the beef sous vide extended its shelf life to 60 days."

The supermarkets were full of famous chefs’ branded signature dishes but the local palate and media dismissed it as a fad a bit too close to mass produced fast food. It was thought [ in a gastronomic sense] that while it works well for foie gras for those that have not tasted it freshly cooked, it was just a little too industrial for take home food and the restaurants realised that their "brand" was being diminished by mass marketing in a country that still largely cooked at home and went out or to the local traiteur for fancy food. A few months later I am trying to survive in London buried in a basement room of a claustrophobic horror show hotel in Baker Street. The only job I can score is a twee bistro in Islington that has a parent restaurant across the road. The job involved following an intricate set of recipes [loosely used] that gives instructions like

Bag 1 to MW 2 for 15 secs on 4

Bag 2 into WB for 2 mins

Garnish: warm squeezebowl 1 to rim

Salad mix 1 centre

Bag 2 to top

Bag 1 over.

The owner chef of the flagship shop across the road cooked and bagged the whole restaurant menu at the big kitchen with one sous chef and my job was to run the bank of microwaves and pots of water to the simple instructions provided. His food was quite good, solid European cooking, good stocks fresh well picked greenery and good dressings. It took 2 days to get a hold of the system and while completely mind numbing the job demonstrated a minimalist modernity that had a certain perverse attraction if you looked at it from a strictly logistical perspective. We did twice as many covers as his excellent real charcoal grill across the road I came 20 minutes before first orders and left 15 minutes after the last hot dish. The waiters did the pud in a similar way. Luckily a good job in Soho rescued me from who knows what?

You can argue for low temperature setting of proteins, minimal cell disturbance along with post preparation Mallardisation or any other pseudo industrial modernity that takes your fancy but I love to play with fire and juggle a hot pan with a slow steamer, checking a wood oven while reducing a couple of stocks to splash on some freshly roasted meat to serve at the same time as a slow braised stew and a couple of serves of grilled fish. Yes I know sous vide may streamline our service, minimize wastage but I still remember how my mothers freshly cooked foie gras tasted and stumble along to the Stones classic.....

Too Old Too Slow Too Good

2011-10-02T09:00:00.003+11:00

Vale Narelle

2011-09-24T08:08:00.001+10:00

Narelle 4 Feb 1998 -- 21 September 2011

Quail Sera Sera

2011-09-07T17:06:00.003+10:00

It’s the end of a big Sunday service, let’s call him Bill, he quietly meanders into the kitchen with an impish smile, with thanks all round to the kitchen team asks if perchance we liked the taste of wild quail? Our collective eyes light up... a kindred spirit. Over a quiet drink he told us of his passion for hunting quail and how his father had also hunted and explained the intricacies of its storage and preparation. A week later with a rendezvous in Camperdown we get a large box [bag] of superb stubble quail. Now the packaging was intriguing but so elegant. The birds are layered on straw from the fields where they were shot, a large icepack on the top and bottom. Bill explained that this was the same method his father had used during the depression to deliver game to local pubs to supplement the farming income. We spoke about how to dress them and his method is something like this...

First cut off the head, wing tips and feet with a pair of scissors.

Plucking is a quiet skill best performed in company with some good bottles and plenty of conversation Bill does this in the field around a campfire with his mates. I like to age them in feather on the straw in the cool room for about 4-7 days. The feathers and skins are delicate but after about a dozen you get used to the way they are layered. Some start at the back and work their way to the neck others go in reverse, the main thing is to try not to tear the skin. Do not try to use hot water as they are far too delicate When they are plucked rinse and place them into a bucket of icy salted water [10%] salt this begins to sterilise the skin.

When you have plucked your bag make another icy salt bath and cut along the spine with the scissors and remove the internal organs. Rinse and place in the second iced salt water bath. Leave them in the brine for about 4 hours . The quail are now ready to cook or they will store in the fridge for about a week. Sadly most hunters stew them for far too long. They are quite tender and only require about 10 minutes in a hot oven. I like to add a little garlic, salt and juniper into the cavity and bard them with some tasty form of pig fat like speck or bacon and cover with a fine layer of crepinette for roasting. Stubble quail are small with dark flesh but extremely tasty a real wild flavour. A couple of weeks later our rendezvous is in Inverleigh and the prize is Brown Quail from the islands in Bass Straight. Bill has a hunt with his close buddies once a year, the old dog patiently waiting in the car a calming companion. Thanks Bill for reminding me that the best food hardly ever makes it to a restaurant. Now where are those Morels?....

Capocollo for Claire

2011-09-05T14:13:00.002+10:00

Hi Claire
We do a similar method to your Nonno but a wet cure as opposed to a dry one. Click on the photos for a larger resolution. First we choose the neck or scotch fillet of pork that does have fat and do not trim as we feel it adds more flavour. We rub a generous amount of salt very carefully into every little crevice of the meat, this is the most important part-- take your time. After 12 hours the meat will have given off quite a bit of moisture and we turn it every 4 hrs or so for 4 days. We then dry it and cover with a spice mix of paprika, coriander, black pepper and chilli. Then we wrap it in collagen paper and tie it very tight with string and cover with the sausage netting. We also use a piece of AG pipe to thread the stocking on. Then as you do, we hang it in the shed for a couple of months in cool winter weather. I hope you have done this with your Nonno so you can pass your families' methods on to the next generation. They will gather some moulds on the surface and its always good to have an expert to let you know if these are good moulds. The more surface mould the better the fermented flavour. This is the easiest of pork cuts to cure as there is no bone for air to get trapped in.
We vacuum pack them after they are done to stop them from continuing to dry out. Some people pack them in lard which does the same thing. Photos from Steve and Ingrid.

How the National Food Plan Stole My Homework

2011-09-01T23:14:00.002+10:00

As some of you have been reminding me I have been slack and not updating the blog for ages.So let me know which if any of these you would like expanded?

How it feels to roast your first batch of Coffee Peruvian, Table Top, and Ethiopian Yirgfacheffe?

And is it a fallacy to wait for 3 days before brewing a freshly roasted batch?

How to dress and age Wild Stubble and Brown quail with straw from the fields where it was shot?

Update on the Khorasan and Spelt trials now in its 3^rd Month ?

The Khorasan is winning by about 6 inches despite being sown a month later?

Is the first chapter of Grand Days by Frank Moorhouse the most appetising first chapter of any book?

How to make Capocollo?

How much cheese whey is added to generic supermarket milk?

Will anyone review Modernist Food or is it too heavy? 6 Kilos of ink.

How the upcoming wholesale fish market move has already changed the way you buy fish?

Why the National Food Plan, arguably the most important policy initiative that our little part of the blogsphere seems to be obsessed with has been largely ignored in both the mainstream and new media? Submissions are due on the 2nd Sept I have been trying to submit a response and will post it if I can?

Is there someone out there who could help me to redo the format of this blog in a less clunky way?

And the only really serious question -

Will Geelong make it to the Grand Final?

Praise the Roots and Flick the Nanganator

2011-07-21T14:22:00.005+10:00

Rory our third year apprentice keeps us on our toes. He has found his feet at school, getting down and dirty in the garden, spending time doing work experience at PM 24 and also keeping us fossils streetsmart with local jargon.

I try to keep him tuned on current trends but when he asked why I don’t have a nanganator both Richard and I were stumped.

I have been trying to hone his skills using traditional methods to create natural textures and flavours, taking the old fogey view that all the so called new molecular methods can be created with real food and traditional techniques if the cook has the required skills.

The nanganator he informed us is urban slang for the gas bottle used for nefarious means that has crossed over into the kitchen lexicon for making foams. I tried to explain to him that there were a multitude of methods using various natural gums, resins and of course eggs that if he was able to master, would put him in a very good position with respect to essential skills that would serve him well into the future. Then of course he pointed out that in all the school competitions he was doing the winners were invariably nanganating their way to victory.

I needed a trump card.

It’s taken 6 months but I have finally tracked down Soapwort Roots, an ingredient that Anissa Helou alerted me to last summer.

I met Anissa with her friend Mary Taylor Simeti when they visited Melbourne after the Sydney International Food Festival Chefs Showcase. It’s always a joy to show Melbourne to visitors. Many of you would have read Mary’s wonderful books on her life in Sicily On Persephone's Island: Pomp And Sustenance: Twenty-five Centuries of Sicilian Food, Bitter Almonds to name a few and we spent a lazy wet Melbourne day cruising the galleries and eateries getting to know each other.

Anissa is an expert on Middle Eastern Food and had just presented a session in Sydney where she used soapwort roots to make an intriguing desert called Natef.

Last week while on the hunt for liquorice roots I noticed a little bag of dried roots labelled Halwa Roots in a shop on Sydney road. I remembered that Anissa had also blogged about Halva and how soapwort was also used in its manufacture.

I had the Ace of Trumps. The King of Foams was my new best friend.

Firstly I tried Anissa’s recipe [click here] for natef this worked a treat and found soapwort to be an extremely fascinating and versatile ingredient.The technique is simple boil dry soapwort roots in water.10% by weight roots to water and cook till reduced by 75%. That is 600ml reduced to 150ml. This brown dishwater looking liquid whips up, hot or cold, to a pure white foam that visually is hard to distinguish from beaten egg whites. I tried to increase the acidity to cut the sweetness of Anissa's recipe by adding more lemon juice. This also works well. The foam is neutral in flavour so concentrated stock also worked. It is stable hot or cold. We started to make other Middle Eastern flavours using Pomegranate Molasses, Quince Molasses then we tried making a Halva Foam that was very good with all the flavour minus the excessive sweetness that makes Halva a bit cloying for many palates. We found we could make the lightest of chocolate mousses by folding in bitter chocolate melted into a little water thereby making a vegan mousse lighter than anything I had made with eggs. We froze all the foams and they stay stable for at least a week? giving a type of frozen nougat that completely disappears on the tongue.Importantly we discovered that we could reuse the boiled roots at least 3 times.While we were getting sudsy in the kitchen Diane quietly informed us that soapwort has been growing in the garden for 30 years, an unassuming plant that comes back after frosts each year. So Rory will be able to dig his own roots quite soon.

And I can put my old fogey hat on and get back to learning how to use Natef in its traditional contexts starting with walnut biscuits called Karrabeej ma Natef. At least until the next challenge that Rory comes up with.

The Wright Stuff

2011-06-03T00:00:00.009+10:00

Its twenty years ago today that Diane and I first opened Sunnybrae. A week out from our scheduled opening in June 1991 I realised that while most of the staffing, construction and functional details had finally been finished: I had not yet worked out a final format for the menu. We had a full house booked - the heat was on. We started preparing food on the Friday but how it was to be presented was still yet to be decided. I thought that we would pop the antipasto on a beautiful primitive Australian Cedar table in the middle of the dining roon that we had picked up at a clearing sale in Camperdown and serve the hot food from the kitchen. The idea was to create a menu that gave the diner an experience as close as possible to eating in a private home but with professional service.

We went to a lot of clearing sales in those days-- strong tea from the ladies auxiliary , good sangers lots of time between lots... At one of these sales I met John Sutton a bright eyed collector/dealer seriously addicted to one off quirky items ... we soon realised that we were after the same stuff. Over that long afternoon we talked about mutual mates, the bargains that got away, tall tales from sales past and we have remained friends ever since that day . So when John rang last week to say that he had accidentally bid A$330,000 on Ebay for Beatice’ s hat I thought that he might have finally lost it. After he explained how he only meant to bid 23,000 euros and mistakenly added a zero I still thought he was in la la land.

I rang him the next day to find out what happened and he said that he was outbid by another nutter and as an embarrassed aside to hide a bit of “What were you thinking thinking” that I was giving him, he mentioned he had picked up some interesting chairs at a clearing sale Japan that had a bit of food history and might interest me. This instantly restored my faith in his ability to turn up real treasures.

Over the last twenty years while I have been here developing Sunnybrae Restaurant I have put my collectors habit into hibernation. John on the other hand has developed one of the most interesting second hand businesses in the country. From local clearing sales his interest turned first to Japan where he goes many times each year to bring back very unusual items as well as furniture, architectural fittings and bric-a-brac . But now John also scours the sales and warehouses of Morocco, Mexico, India, China, South America and his warehouse/shop KYO in Ocean Grove is a veritable Aladdin’s cave for the curious collector. Where else could you buy a Bakelite 1960’s telephone in the shape of a penguin?

From the clearing sale 30 years ago fast forward to this year when one of John’s scouts unearthed three remarkable chairs at another clearing sale, this time in Japan

When I think of restaurant or hotel projects few could be compared to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo for inspiration or scale. Wright had always been interested in the Japanese aesthetic [ as well as his architecture he was a serious collector and dealer in Japanese woodblock prints} and when he was given the opportunity to design the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo it was a chance to express his love of the Japanese style with the coming of western modernity to Japan. The project ran from 1915 to 1923.

The “Peacock” chairs in the top pohto, now in Ocean Grove were constructed by an unknown Japanese craftsman, but were specifically designed by Wright to be used in the Imperial Hotel’s Peacock room.
I hope a gallery in Oz is able to secure at least one of them.

Now flash back to the opening in June 1991--- its now Saturday and about an hour before the first table is due to arrive I was still uneasy about the format . At the last moment I decided to serve the antipasto in three stages from the kitchen rather than on the cedar table that brought John and I together. It would be less messy and give the opportunity to take a break at any time during the service to go for a walk, have a private tete- a-tete stretch the legs. The format has not changed very much since that day.

I am very grateful to all of you for allowing Diane and I to continue to let you enjoy our little patch. Thanks.

Pulp Friction

2011-05-25T15:46:00.003+10:00

A very big thanks to the true believers who braved the journey to come and help us pick the olives this year.

Total 785kg resulting in nearly 100L of very fine extra virgin olive oil. Low yield but great flavour.

Each time I get to see the processing I am amazed at the generosity of this humble fruit to give up its free flowing oil. But even with the new technology available there is still a great deal of expert experience needed to get the best out of a crop. Karen who is running the show at Camillo Olives near Teesdale explained the intricacies of the process over a few hours that were needed to extract our oil.

The perfectly engineered hammer mill makes the fruit into a pulp/paste that can then be “malaxed” or kneaded until the oil pools. Over malaxing can cause the temperature to get too high excluding it from Extra Virgin status. Sometimes a little water is added to help the oil separate from the paste. After the malaxing the pulp is pumped into the centrifuge and its now that the fine tuning begins. Link here to the first time we pressed our olives.

With the help if a micrometer Karen adjusts the inflow pipe to get maximum oil and also minimum grey water. If you have run a coffee machine it’s a little like adjusting the grind to get the best extraction. Karen had to adjust the spinner at least 20 times during the day to get the correct “Veil” [Baristas read Crema] seen here on a spoon ,the line of clear oil in the middle of the flow is the correct indicator.

The best parts of picking and processing are the conversations around the trees and press that make an otherwise dull repetitive process into a joyous communal affair.Time to catch up with mates- break some bread, spin some yarns.

Verdict? Come and taste it yourself......

Thank you all again.

Notes from the 18th Australian Symposium of Gastronomy.

2011-05-19T23:23:00.004+10:00

3 Easy Pieces

Old Parliament House Canberra, to discuss some historical and modern questions of Gastronomy with Federation as the focal point.

The full papers will be available in time at..http://gastronomers.org/.

It begins with a debate whether we should legislate for good food?

Won decisively by the Negative.

Less regulation would be better for “food matters”

Belated question through the Chair [Alan Saunders]

Would the honourable Leader of the Opposition [Robin Archer] oppose the bill from the Independent from Whoorel that legislates to allow naturally fermented meats, cheese [in all its forms] and fresh wild game to be made and sold openly?

Lunch in the old Members Dining Room [silky oak conservative neo Griffin grand dining room]

Denis Dowell points to a lone picnic on the lawns halfway up to New Parliament house while Michael Symons delivers the final paper. Denis has the perfect perspective, the One Continuous Picnic lives on.

Last Night

Sat next to Ian Bersten who took me inside the coffee cup deeper than I have ever been.

Outside at the aboriginal embassy I bot a light and warm myself in front of the fire that has been burning for 40 years.

Breakfast in the old kitchen, the range was made in StKilda

Coffee and a gutsy conversation before the flight

Thank you Mary Brander for your generous hospitality.

and David for showing me this.

Olive Pickers Please

2011-05-03T18:17:00.001+10:00

If you would like to help us pick the olive harvest this year we would greatly appreciate a few helping hands. The wood oven, kitchen, bar and coffee machine will all be fully loaded and an abundance of sustenance will be provided for all those who would like to spend a day together picking the largest harvest we have seen had so far. The trees are laden and we guestimate the optimum ripeness to be on the weekend of May 21 and 22 the restaurant will be closed as we will be on our annual break.

We welcome any of our regular or should I say irregular visitors to spend a day helping us to bring in the harvest. No BYO and all consumables provided. If you can come please let us know you are coming by ringing zero three 52362276 for catering numbers. Bring a hat, possibly wet weather gear, some good stories and a healthy appetite.

Strawberry Fields Forever

2011-04-20T14:33:00.010+10:00

I guess I am one of those people that John Lethlean would regard as a flat earth theorist or perhaps a deranged Qaddafi disciple. Last week John alluded to the idea that only celebrity chefs with a film crew in tow go to markets regularly to shop [link here] and cooks never just buy produce on the spur of the moment when they see something wonderful. Well John I can honestly say you should get out a bit more and perhaps a bit earlier.

I have been going to the markets most weeks for over 20 years and I can assure you that I am not alone in this activity. I see many professional cooks also doing the rounds searching for the ripe elusive treasure.
Last week as I was nearing the edge of the known world I spotted these wonderful Ugni or Chilean Guavas [ugni moliae] at Victoria Market. They are a member of the myrtle family and have a wonderful heady strong strawberry aroma and flavour. It said to have been Queen Victoria's favourite Jam. I have tasted it many times from a friend's garden but all my attempts at growing them have not been successful. The taste is like a little strawberry bliss bomb. Ugni are on of those fruits that professional growers shy away from as picking them is so labour intensive but there are growers in Tasmania and now one close to us at Lovely Banks near Geelong. The marketers have chosen to call them Tazziberries contact details on website tazziberry.com. or Stephen Scott at Geelong 0409969710. But its not just the Ugni, without a market visit I could not pick my own fecund ripe figs from 3 varieties, chose my own pomegranates, find the finest autumn raspberries and so many other treasures that only a regular market goer can find.
Many stall holders are also small growers and have very limited quantities of produce that that seldom make it onto mainstream restaurant menus. There are also the secret ingredients that only the regulars get but I'm afraid I have to stay schtum on these.
Then as you are leaving [free parking till 10 am] you see the film crews arriving and GOODONEM they are bringing publicity to one of the finest markets I have visited. Anyway I'm off to Asia if I don't fall off the edge of the earth at Footscray. But I guess John is right I must be a complete dinosaur as when I need to find out how to store the Ugni I reach for the bookshelf before the keyboard and vist my literary mates and gain more inspiration.

On another front there has been a story floating around the bloggsphere that wild Porcini [boletus edulis] have been found in the Adelaide Hills and sold at the Adelaide Markets. First mentioned on lambsearandhoney blog [link here] I rang some contacts at the botanical gardens and got positive scientific information that yes they have now been confirmed with the proper protocols. There have been many anecdotal stories of boletus edulis sightings going back to 1867 but none to date officially verified. Did I miss the mainstream media on this? I can remember going on a fungi foray in New Zealand to gather fresh specimens for Masterclass at the Melbourne food and Wine festival in the late nineties on the whisper that wild porcini were growing in Hagley Park Christchurch. Feeling more than a little silly on taking such a journey on a mere whisper, I accidentally stumbled on a very moving memorial to John Lennon of Strawberry Fields and lo and behold just at the side of the commemrative plaque there was a small group of ceps/porcini or whatever you like to call this King of the Boletes amongst the strawberry plants.

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.

It is getting hard to be someone but it all works out.

It doesn't matter much to me....

1968 Worldly Goods and Bads

2011-03-16T13:41:00.006+11:00

Its hard to focus on local issues when the tragic upheavals around the world keep escalating at such speed as in the last couple of months. At times like these I like to hide in a good book.
I was re-visiting Mark Kurlansky’s book ‘1968’ The Year that Rocked the world. The same MK of Cod A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World and Salt A World History [seems to be a worldly theme here], when I could not help drawing a long bow speculating that perhaps 2011 was shaping up to be another monumental year like 1968. The theme of 1968 is revolution and change. Highly recommended.
As opposed to 1968 in 2011 the level of dissent [at least in our small microcosm of food related issues] is well and truly underground. [try this] The usual sermons of ethical, sustainable, local, clean, green and such mantras as still being politely chanted by the cognoscenti but now in 2011 the guerrilla tactics are coming from the supermarkets and not the radicals as in 68. In 2011 Green is Good [business]. Now we have Curtis Stone spruiking hormone free meat, while at the other end of the big store the milk price is being used to suck out the independence and profitability of our dairy farmers and consequently the livelihoods of many other producers/growers who show any sign of sustainable green traction.
I cannot help questioning some of the heavy handed green marketing messages coming from all directions. Like cafes that will run their power from waste cooking oil while locating themselves inside big corporate department stores. In 1968 and well into the seventies I seem to recall a lot more critical scrutiny coming from the mainstream as well as the alternative press. But what is the alternative now?
We are on 30 acres and most of the land has been agisted to a local farmer for a long time who has used it to breed dairy cows. This year he has pulled back production and this left us thinking of what other means we might explore to manage the land. As the rains have left us with full dams it might be time to try to grow a small crop of cereals? I immediately thought of spelt, but commercial quantities of seed seems to be very hard to find as most producers run a ‘closed shop enterprise’ and only supply those that are in their own marketing groups. If spelt proves too difficult to source then it may be a combination of other grains or legumes?
Meanwhile I will have a lookout for Kurlansky’s other book The Basque History of the World while seeking temporary literary refuge from the real world.

Cooking Classes 2011

2011-03-08T16:35:00.001+11:00

After our summer cooking school break the 2011 cooking classes begin this week and every Monday till May 9 and resume again on 13 June. For those new to Sunnybrae they begin at 9.30 for a 10am start. Our classes take the form of a guided workshop where we prepare a 4 or 5 course lunch made up from requests from the participants. We can include any requests provided the ingredients are in season and available in Victoria. The full story of how classes work can be found HERE.

It helps to bring a sharp knife, sensible shoes and an apron but Diane has designed a new apron pictured above for those who would like to purchase one. The 2010 aprons are already collector’s items.

Feeling Groovy

2011-02-11T23:22:00.007+11:00

After you get over the shock of the colour covers, as you start to get into guts of the magazines, you realise that the black and white art is a treasury of spontaneous proto tag graphic yksnaBBansky
Working on the menu 1968 seems to be a good place to start- Prague Spring, Vietnam, Che, Castro, the Olympics XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
there was a fair bit to talk about at the table. The music will be a treat to set.
8 Spots left on Saturday March 5 all on a share table in the Sex Kitten Salon.
M will be wearing Marimeko. J asked- madmen on sunday? The cooks will be wearing hats.
Details here

C 2 And Now It's Legal

2011-01-14T16:43:00.007+11:00

Nick [Santa] Haddow and his elves have released what I think must be the first legally made unpasteurised cheese in Australia, it’s called C2. Our little allocation was tasted at staff lunch today and all proclaimed it delicious. Great aroma, the kind that greets you at an affineur’s in France. Funky, and deeply satisfying. Describing flavour can be a difficult task but some of the comments around the table today were—Mmm... OK! Yes, alright!!, Can you taste a proveloneness? That darker bit has gorgonzola notes? Umm its like a great English cheddar! Soo [delicate iron chef accent] savoury!

I don’t know how much is available but at least some of the barriers are being broken down and the way is open for Nick and others to bring this industry out from under the stranglehold of the wowsers.

Its been a long road.

Goodonya

A Year In Pictures

2010-12-24T17:56:00.001+11:00

LOOKING BACK AT 2010 CLICK HERE

The day I met Les Tanner

2010-11-25T23:12:00.003+11:00

I have some very old fashioned ideas about running a restaurant. I like going shopping . I enjoy the random chaos that markets and provedores provide. I enjoy talking to shopkeepers, stall holders, growers and all people at the coalface of this diverse industry. I am also slightly dyslexic and only ingredients that I can see and touch can trigger ideas. That’s really the only way I can write a menu. Yesterday afternoon as I popped in to one of our suppliers to pick up some basic staples the young lady in the office asked me what was probably a very innocent icebreaker of a question that triggered a memory from a time when I had just embarked upon this rollercoaster of a life in food.
“And what kind of cooking do you do?” She asked.
This immediately took me back thirty years. We were young and not yet experienced enough to know what the media was and how public exposure can influence people’s interpretations of something simple- like a meal in a restaurant. We were new to the game, questioning everything determined to simplify and yet continue deep traditions that at the time we were just beginning to study. A friend had telephoned and said she was bringing a very highly respected journalist and cartoonist for dinner whose work I really admired. His name was Les Tanner.
At the beginning of the meal Les asked “and what type of cooking do you do? “
I struggled to find the words to explain what we were doing and blurted out that we were practicing Gestalt Cuisine. Les laughed and with an impish smile said that he did not really like German food but that the Japanese have a way that combines metaphysics with the rituals of the table that perhaps I may enjoy investigating.
Its a hard ask. We just cook? Still, I’m proud to say in a Gestalt kind of way.

Get off the beach! You're Obscene

By Les Tanner from the Bulletin October 1961

Espresso Extra Espresso

2010-11-18T19:53:00.002+11:00

Just a quick note to alert you to a very special new book called

Journeys of Melbourne’s COFFEE PIONEERS

.The book launch is accompanied by a spectacular exhibition of vintage coffee machines [not for sale] at Leonard Joel’s Auction Rooms in Malvern Road Prahran Its on I believe till Sunday this week. I would have not have found this [was it publicised anywhere?] except for that I have to confess to a bit of an addiction to Joels and usually cruise the general sales every Wednesday. I’m very glad I did this week as many of you will know from this post that vintage coffee machines are also a bit of an obsession. Generally I look for quirky bits of silly ephemera and the odd bit of Faberge but this week it was the book and big boy toys that took my attention. Luckily they are not for sale as I might have been tempted again.

The real star of the show is the book that adds another layer to some already fine social histories that have been written about Melbourne and its deep food and wine traditions.

Sandra Makris has managed to capture the stories behind many of the pioneers of cafe culture in Melbourne with a warm well researched volume that is a joy to read.

I am sure it will be available in the bookshops soon but if you can get down to see the machines [especially the new wave young guns amongst you ] I believe they [some of the legends] will be pulling shots on Sunday. Sir James Gobbo opened the exhibition and if you read the book you can read how the Gobbo family has solid claims to bringing the first espresso machine to Melbourne in 1938 an early steam driven La Cimbala for the St.Kilda Grill Rooms that were in Victoria St near the market. Stories of The Legend Cafe with its Leonard French murals, the Sputnic style model designed for Golden Fleece service stations, the Lollobrigida model speciale, the fleet of Combi coffee carts. Its a blast.

Salute to the Humble Yabbie

2010-10-22T19:19:00.062+11:00

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A Swaggy from Toon-bloody-gabby
Was savaged to death by a yabbie
So unique was his fate
That his sorrowing mate
Had him buried in Westminster Abbey

By L.H Dalziel winner of the Australasian Post’s Yabbie Limerick Competition 1979
Illustration by the seriously delightful Vane Lindesay

I have been rediscovering Peter Olszewski’s wonderful book A Salute to Humble Yabbie published by Angus and Robertson in 1980.The book covers the history, science and folklore surrounding this wonderful wild food. I’m sure that with a new publisher/designer it is ready for a re-print. Amongst his many achievements, Peter was the Australian editor of Playboy Magazine. He wrote and stirred up the establishment under the nom de plume, JJ Mc Roach. He was also Hunter S Thompson’s official chaperone/ road buddy on his Australian tour. Last heard of teaching journalism in Myanmar.

Its been 10 years or more since we have thought about yabbying [you need water in the dams] but since the recent rain the Opera House nets went in today and thankfully the yabbies are still here.

This is from a piece I wrote for The Australian in 1999. Sadly for us Greengrass mentioned below has retired but I wonder if there is an enterprising understudy out there ready to take up the mantle? And while the prediction about Purslane has not fully come to fruition I still think its on its way. Rock samphire is still rarely used but the seaside marsh samphire in the recipe is making its presence felt on many menus.

SUCCULENTS AND YABBIES 1999
Summer is the time to enjoy yabbies . Bill, our resident ‘Greengrass’, has his dams well covered. He is able to provide the restaurant with seemingly endless supplies. I’m talking of wild yabbies, not those bred for uniform size with no flavour. He stores them in holding nets above the muddy bottom of his dams and they arrive clean and feisty. I believe the best way to keep them is in a bucket in the fridge, packed tightly with a wet cloth on top, no water packed tightly so they do not attack each other. Be careful they like to go walkabout. They will stay like this, in good nick for 3 days. I cook them in fairly salty water for about a minute. I find that vinegar, lemon and such, in the cooking liquid tends to mask their sweet flavour. They are so delicate we like to do as little as possible to them, just cook and serve them very quickly.

If grey is the next black in the fashion world, then Purslane could become the new Rocket

It’s a succulent, easy to grow with a fleshy leaf that loves a good drink of dressing. The stalks are refreshingly acidic, a perfect match for the yabbies. It loves to be picked.

Rock Samphire, another easy to grow succulent, brings the dish together . To me the flavour is a combination of seaweed and green peppercorns, slightly salty. The rock samphire is a perennial, one plant is enough for a large mob. The purslane will self-seed every year, weedy, but easy to control.
Seeds should be available from a specialist plant nursery.
A SALAD OF WILD YABBIES WITH PURSLANE AND ROCK SAMPHIRE
SERVES 6
48 Yabbies
500G Purslane
100G Rock Samphire
150ML Fruity Extra Virgin olive oil
20ML Lemon Juice
Sea salt, pepper
PUT A LARGE POT OF SALTED WATER ON THE BOIL
CLEAN THE PURSLANE AS FOR BASIL KEEP THE STALKS SEPARATE
REMOVE THE SAMPHIRE LEAVES FROM THE STALKS WASH AND DRY. CHOP FINELY
PREPARE A SIMPLE VINAIGRETTE WITH THE OIL LEMON CHOPPED SAMPHIRE AND SEASONINGS
SAUTE THE PURSLANE STALKS IN SOME OLIVE OIL, LEMON JUICE SEASONING
COOL AND SET ASIDE.
WHEN READY TO SERVE DRESS THE SALAD LEAVES AND STALKS
COOK THE YABBIES, FOR ONE MINUTE [ABOUT 8 AT A TIME, SO AS NOT TO LOSE THE BOIL]
BE CAREFUL THEY BITE.
SERVE WHOLE WITH THE SALAD OR PEELED IF YOUR GUESTS HAVE CLOTHES ON.

Tasmanian freshwater crayfish Wynyard 3.6 kg

And then the Rains Came

2010-10-12T17:36:00.003+11:00

After 10 years all the dams are full

The fruit trees have a new lease of life.

Stars of the Royal Melbourne Show

Trade Off or It"s Not Parmesan Guy!

2010-09-21T18:19:00.007+10:00

A group of third year cooking apprentices from Ballarat came for an end of year excursion today.

They were full of energy and enthusiasm for their chosen trade. We made bread, picked some asparagus got into some intensive prep. Roasted some pig. Then a long lunch... a peep into a different world. It’s hard to tell what road a cook will take but I hope the visit gave them a perspective that may trigger a few questions as they make their way in the trade.

The rest of this little pig got a right royal roasting in the wood oven but the head and feet gave us a chance to make a traditional brawn. It was braised for 3 hours on a classic mirepoix and some complex meat stock till it came apart. Not cooked too much as to make it stringy just falling off the bone. The brain was cooked separately and added back at the end. We added some spiced cumquats, aromatics and pistachio nuts and it set itsef. Can be used as a cold starter but today we crumbed small slices of it and deep fried it as a garnish for some wood smoked neck and slowly braised belly on lentils.

The talk around the table in yesterday’s class turned to “hanging’ or “dry ageing of meat”. I am amazed at how a simple ageing technique for meats has turned into a pissing contest on how long a piece of meat has been left to mature. I have always tried to age red meats to a degree that allows good cooking to occur naturally. I can appreciate the mature flavours developed after very long maturation times but often meat is matured at temperatures that are too low to allow natural enzyme action to happen quickly. Consequently they become more like old chilled beef, funky but not great. A well slaughtered, low tension hung, carefully butchered carcass of prime grass fed beef will not need to be hung for more that 5 weeks.But the temperature has to be carefully monitored and the carcass kept whole. After butchery any cut smaller than a forequarter will not age properly. Ageing a rib eye is ok but much better aged on the carcass. As to wet ageing a piece of hanger in a plastic bag then dry ageing it for months is simply silly.

The Plug.

How long is it before the word Parmesan can only be used for cheese that is actually Parmesan Mr. Grossi?

Gruen please note!! Mil Lel.

We wouldn’t mind if it was made properly and tasted good.

It has been legal to make unpasteurised parmesan style cheeses in Australia for about 2 years now so why has nobody done it yet?
The Brief must have been how to sell Parmesan that’s not Parmesan?
Or put on the 3D glasses and groove to the real thing here.. Parmigiano-Reggiano

Welcome Wanda from Warnambool

2010-08-19T19:21:00.013+10:00

A big welcome to Wanda from the Warrnambool RSPCA. She has taken on front of house duties from Barbie who sadly left us last November.

For those who have expressed concern over lack of posts fear not we have just been a bit busy clearing the decks and planning for the year in the garden.

Winter in the garden can seem to be a quiet time but many of you know just how busy this cool and [this year thankfully wet] spell can be. Paul Smith [his agent won’t allow images without written permission] our gardener, has also been a busy boy. Winter is a time to reflect and plan for the coming year and Paul helps us to put all our garden plans into action. Seeds are being ordered and selected, the garlic has been planted, spring seedlings are being wintered at Paul’s hothouse, all the fruit trees are pruned, new beds weeded and mulched, the olive trees need to be trimmed and suckers removed. Already the first shoots have begun to emerge on the sheltered fruit trees The asparagus has given us a premature spurt, the artichokes are away and the broad beans are nearly ready to flower. A couple of old fruit trees that have not recovered from the big dry have been replaced with new varieties of figs. The pistachios are due to fruit this year and Wanda has had her first Truffle hunting lessons.

But generally the garden has been asleep recharging for spring and summer. New compost has been spread. For the first time in ages we might be able to plant out the whole garden as the groundwater is well replenished and the dams are slowly filling. The plan for this year is a larger planting of melons: concentrating on small Ogden and Charentais. A whole bunch of new tomatoes are selected as well as our saved seeds. There was such a good response to the Tomatillo that they will also get plenty of space this year and I am determined to expand the ground cherries this year.

After so many years garden rituals are renewed. Rex has been busy rehabilitating all the berries but the Japanese strawberries still need to be moved to new ground. I never thought we would see the dams full again but this year could be the one. The olives are looking splendid but reluctantly I have to tell you about the Great Olive Disaster of 2010. Yes we have no olive oil of our own this year.
We spent 3 glorious days with mates in late April picking a bumper crop of over 500Kg of olives.
The olive harvest brings boozy lunches with great conversations catching up with friends while picking over the trees. The harvest signals the end of our year- bags are packed for Istanbul. The olive press is booked for the following morning--- all looking good. With the Kitchen and house cleaned I secured the tarp proudly over the crop and whizzed down to Melbourne to tie up a few loose ends and pick up the house sitter before flying out. When Diane got up in the morning to take the load to the press she was shocked to find the ute gone...stolen overnight. The cops are called and they tell us that another property about 2 Km down the road had also been broken into that night and another stolen car abandoned there, bogged by the side of the road. Now this car had been stolen in Geelong but the not so clever thieves had purchased petrol at Waurn Ponds and conveniently left the receipt in the abandoned vehicle. The police confidently assured us that they had their photo and prints and that they were onto it.....

With a rather bitter taste we take off. No news for 3 weeks when a friend emails me that there had been a small article in the Geelong Advertiser with a wanted photo of our perpetrator and the details of the ute. Four hours later another email arrives to say that the ute has been found in Ocean Grove with some rather mouldy olives in the back....

I think Mr. Plod could have notified the papers a bit sooner especially as they had the photo and details the next day. The car seems to have been there since that auspicious night.
The new growth on the olives reminds me that a year can wizz by and before you know it we will have new oil.

Shit happens!! There I’ve got if off my chest.

Joanna Zens portrait of Wanda from her groovy new phone.

Vive la [Wiff] France

2010-07-14T15:47:00.005+10:00

Kitchen gossip here inevitably shifts towards travel tales. Richard Hoooper who has been back in the kitchen here since November last year, recently came up with the question of ‘where you would take a fellow visitor for their first taste of Paris?.... when I met a jetlagged Diane at the airport on our first visit we dropped our bags at Henri Quatre and I whisked her off into the Metro to emerge at Place de la Concorde with the city framed in all its glory- then off to la Palette for a hot grog. Any contributions on this auspicious day?

It was also on this trip that we surprisingly found that with the Franc at 9.5 to the dollar we were able to purchase a full batterie de cuisine at Dehilerin and not have to go to jail for credit card fraud. Now after nearly 30 years they have finally been re-lined. Most of them had nickel or stainless steel linings and over the years more and more were being retired to the shed as I could not find anyone prepared to remove the remains of the old linings and re-do them.

Neil from At My Table suggested Carroll Electroplating in Brunswick and while we were in Turkey all the pots were re-lined and polished to a very shmicko standard. They do a great job re-lining them very thickly in tin so any repeats will be easy.

I know we are getting bombarded by truffle stories but Bastille Day perhaps gives a little extra dispensation to truffle matters. It is very heartening to learn that Chinese truffles have been put on the prohibited list of imports fresh into Australia since 2009. Tuber Sinesis [the Chinese Truffle] looks just like Tuber Melanospornum [Perigord Truffle] making it very hard to distinguish them from real thing except for the fact that they have hardly any flavour or scent. They are also less than $100 per kg and so could be very tempting to unscrupulous dealers. I can remember carpetbaggers targeting expensive restaurants over the years with very expensive black golf balls and eating also a lot of dodgy dishes. In those days not many chefs had been exposed to the real thing and substitution was rife . Many hundreds of kilos of Chinese truffle is still exported to Britain each year but surprisingly none seem to be sold? Its hard to get the figures from AQUIS as to how much has been imported to Australia in recent years but I suspect quite a bit.

The flavour of truffles seems to elude some and sadly restaurateurs not wishing to disappoint diners are still lacing perfectly good Perigord truffle with truffle oil. There is a difference between the flavour of truffle and its aroma. Just as with a lemon the aroma of the lemon oil in the rind and the flavour of the juice are quite different. Together they are the complex experience that is a lemon.

With truffles sometimes they have very little aroma but strong flavour and also some have a very good aroma but virtually no flavour. When buying truffle a good dealer will offer you a tiny shard for tasting as well as testing the aroma. But thankfully no more cheap Tuber Cinesis to devalue the experience.
Vive la difference ...

Photos at Truffle Farm by Richard Hoooper

Yufka Re-Visited --- A Bit of a Stretch

2010-06-30T12:02:00.003+10:00

I had met Yufka a few years ago. She was hiding in the fridge in the delis of Footscray market. [see Kamal below]

Yufka is a Turkish pastry mentioned in previous dispatches. Thin but not as thin as Phyllo. Rustic, gutsy- really useful as a wrapping for just about anything. There are many brands, much of it handmade and excellent. At Bas Foods in Victoria Street Brunswick about 2 years ago, I found and bought two of the long thin pins used to roll them but I had never plucked up the courage to try to make Yufka. Then of course she disappeared for a while: not available from the usual suspects. So we worked on the pastry for a while and realised that none of the printed recipes would work. Getting the pastry to stretch as much as Yufka needs to requires something special.

My mother made very fine strudel, in fact the first work she did after we arrived from Hungary in 1957 was to open a strudel shop in the old St.Kilda market in Acland St. I remembered that she always added a little vinegar to the dough and this made it very easy to stretch. When the Ottoman Empire added Hungary to its range of influence it brought with it many culinary delights including Paprika, and Phyllo and although some historians still argue the point it is widely thought that strudel also came with the Turks.

After a little trial and error we had the dough right but stretching it with the long thin pins proved to be a little difficult. We wrongly assumed that the uneven surface of our workbenches was why we could not roll them out easily. But when we got to Istanbul the secret was revealed. If you look closely at the rolling pins they are not flat but ever so slightly thicker in the centre tapering out gently on both sides. The dough is rolled out roughly then rolled carefully onto the pin and the stretching is done while the pastry is rolled up on the pin with a gentle rolling and outward pressure. As it gets thinner a little flour is sprinkled onto the inner surface so it does not stick together on the pin. To get a round shape you need to rotate the pastry 90 degrees each time between rolls. With a little practice we were soon making quite acceptable Yufka and now incorporate it into our cooking classes if the occasion is right.

The flour should be of medium strength, half bakers’ flour and half plain flour with a little wholemeal flour. The shapes of the finished product can be cigars, triangles, semicircles, rolls, spirals or even full round pies about half a metre in diameter. Most of the fillings we tasted in Turkey were a variation of cheese and cooked and or raw greens. Wild weeds, purslane, cress, unique varieties of spinach and the cheeses were just as variable some crumbly and dry, others fresh and moist. The pastries can be fried or baked and the leftover scraps can be used fresh or dried as a pasta.

At the moment we are making Yufka rolls with Celariac, Pumpkin and Kale flavoured with garlic and orange zest and serving it with a side dish of smokey eggplant and pomegranates.

Recipe for the Pastry
150g Strong Flour 150g plain flour 50g wholemeal flour
200 to 250g water
10 g Salt and 10ml of vinegar or lemon Juice
Knead into a smooth dough and roll into small balls the size of a lemon and rest for one hour.
After rolling out the pastry as described above lightly seal on a warm hotplate or an upside down wok. We like to brush each sheet with melted butter and sprinkle some dried home made breadcrumbs over it, to separate and keep each layer crisp before rolling— but that’s just the Magyar in me.

Truffles in the Otways

2010-06-11T19:27:00.002+10:00

A quick post to let you all know that the season for fresh Black Truffle has begun in earnest at Truffle Farm near Wongara in the Otways. For the back story click here.

Truffle Farm has new owners Mikhaila and Steve the owners of La Bimba Cafe and Restaurant have recently purchased Truffle Farm and this morning with the help of Delores the pig and Archer the Viszla we unearthed over two kilos of premium Black Truffle [tuber melanospernum] much to everyones delight. If you would like to get a hold of some prime examples without any middlemen or corporate hype you can contact them on 52377411 or 0413566924. A grand breakfast is now available at La Bimba in Apollo bay throughout the season.

More later....

Byzantium not Constantinople Now it's Istanbul not Constantinople...

2010-06-08T21:52:00.015+10:00

Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks.

It was a song I could never get it out of my head I blame that jukebox at the Flamingo in Acland Street it ate a lot of my sixpences. OO EE OO haha ting tang wallawallabingbang, That’s the name of the game, every generation they play the same.

Finally we got to old Stamboul.

With Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul Memories and the City as our companion we dive into the deep end.

Lush Times?
Lost in translation with the Cucumber blues again.

Black Sea Boletus She said that she would need to consult the elders for a positive identification. An unusual wet and cool week had brought them out.

Ahmed Ertegun the real Sultan of Swing's Bentley roadster If the back seat could talk?

For Hüzün take a Gripin a cup of tea and a good lie down

Normal transmission may take some time to resume...

Kamal's Pelekan Deli

2010-05-07T21:23:00.006+10:00

UPDATE
A new deli has been put in to this site with links to the other end of the market at Masters Fruit and Vegetables and the results are grand.
Every week new products emerge and a balance has been restored to the site. I dont know what has happened to Kamal but there seems to be a new breeze blowing through the market and optimism is high. Great to see and use.
This is Kamal Chamie, he is the owner of the Pelekan Deli at the Footscray Market in Hopkins St. His is the last European delicatessen at this wonderful market. But after more than 20 years he is being evicted at the end of the month.
For those of you unfamiliar with this market it’s at the centre of a very diverse neighbourhood where the careful and skilled shopper can find real gems from many different cultural groups. But the market itself is rapidly losing its diversity and Kamal’s deli is one of the the last links to Europe. It is also the only place leftwhere you can get a decent coffee. But storm crowds are brewing. The new manager is evicting Kamal for supposedly not staying open till 8pm on a Friday evening. He has Church [his words] related obligations on a Friday evening and packs away the goods on display outside the deli but continues to service the counter from the coffee/nut/dried fruits shop he has [This Coffee and Nut shop I have just found out does not belong to Kamal but a friend] opposite to comply with his tenancy conditions. This is not enough for the market management and as such they are evicting him at the end of the month. Most traders that I spoke to also thought that 8pm was unrealistic for many traders. On Saturday a regular customer was so upset that Kamal was being evicted that she started to compile a petition of support. After collecting over 200 signatures the management with the help of CCTV cameras spotted her and marched her out under some duress. As I continued my shopping on Thursday the picture became more disturbing. Many stallholders are too frightened to speak up and the best fish shop is thinking about moving. You may think this is small potatoes but to the people of Footscray and beyond this market is like a village square with a United Nations of food lovers interacting on the most basic and dare I say spiritual level that is the love of good tucker . The conversations I have each week with stallholders and other shoppers inspire me strongly. I have been coming to this market for over 20 years and have seen the ups and downs. The seedy druggy side has been tempered but there are telltale signs of another decline, this time into a false sense that Footscray Market is just Asian. Mono cultural enclaves are emerging outside as well so interaction between different cultural groups is declining. I hope the new manager can see that diversity is the key to keeping this wonderful market’s success. And where am I going to get freshly ground poppyseeds?

The comments function is playing up and some of your comments seem to be getting lost in the system I am not sure whats wrong? When I go to publish them they dissapear?

Gang Gang Warfare

2010-04-22T20:22:00.006+10:00

Underbelly has nothing on Avianbelly. Its on! Gang Gang warfare has started at Sunnybrae with this innocent looking member of the Callocephalon fimbriatum tribe living up to her handsome Australian cockatoo reputation as scout and spotter for this gang of thieves. After a quiet chat to her about the virtues of well hung game birds and a quickpick all the quinces are quickly stashed ready to be slow cooked in the residual heat of the wood oven. Ripe fruit is fair game but when they start to attack green fruit I get very curious as to how a well hung native bird might taste? Tony Bilson tells the tale of Cambridge style family dinners in the Western District of his youth, where roast Black Swan was featured on the menu and many older locals also recall the days of eating wild birds during the depression. Just joking Polly.

Then my neighbor Hans dropped in a box of his prized Bramley apples a variety seldom seen in the market. They are an old English variety mainly used for cooking but to my taste are an equally delicious fresh crisp eating apple. The variety celebrated its 200th anniversary last year. Disaster struck when the original Bramley tree blew down during violent storms at the turn of the 19th century. However, the tree somehow survived and is still bearing fruit more than 100 years later. http://www.bramleyapples.co.uk/

The non astringent Fuyu persimmons have never completely captured my taste buds. They are sweet crisp but nothing on the silken texture and taste of the well ripened astringent varieties.

Quite recently I realised that the Fuyu also bletts or ripens to a jelly like texture with an undefinable unique flavour . Many asian grocers almost give the ripe ones away as it’s the opposite of what they are looking for. I have to admit they also taste pretty good crisp with a seasoning of chilly salt.

Apropos to the last post this is the yellow stainer Agaricus xanthodermus it looks like a field mushroom but stains yellow and smells of Phenol.. Beware!

The next avian assault will be from the Sulphur Crested mob on the olives.

We’re ready Polly!

Horse Mushrooms

2010-04-16T19:14:00.002+10:00

A local farmer kindly dropped off this magnificent haul of Horse Mushrooms a couple of hours ago. It has been many years since I have seen a haul like this. They are Agaricus arvenis but even with these seemingly choice mushrooms quite a few checks need to be made. Firstly where were they were found? Near native trees, pines or open pasture? Alarm bells go off if they are in a native or pine forest. But as they were from open paddocks I can continue to check. Do they stain yellow on scratching? No but they have a slight yellow hue both positive and necessary identification signs for Horse Mushrooms. Does the odour have taints of Phenol? No also good. Are the gills the right shape? Yes. Do they have a double veil? Yes

And finally is the spore print a chocolate brown? Yes.

All OK, so I am able to use them.

But what can we do with such a large amount of very mature examples? The small ones will be used for a special vegetarian dish and some kept for a request for the cooking class on Monday but the rest especially the very large ones will be dried.

They are now safely sliced and in the food dryer where the flavour will be concentrated and we can use them at our leisure to enhance sauces, stocks and any dish that needs the autumnal umami that dried fungi provides. These horse mushrooms are slightly different from what we often call field mushrooms. Again I stress do not rely on post like this but always get an experienced opinion from someone who has seen the specimens before you graze on any wild fungi.

A WORD OF WARNING

2010-04-15T21:18:00.013+10:00

Each year as the fungi season begins I dread reading the news that some unfortunate individual will succumb to the temptation to try a dangerous wild mushroom/toadstool and get very sick or worse die. I have been collecting fungi for over 20 years and each year instead of getting more and more adventurous I get more and more cautious. There is no certain way to identify edible fungi other than from a very experienced and knowledgable person.
Books are useful, but often a very highly powered microscope in the hands of a very experienced mycologist is the only way to identify fungi and even then, the most common verdict here in Australia is "not known to be edible". We live in a continent that has the most extraorinary variety of fungi but edibility is not known for most of our indigenous fungi. The above collage is a small sample of native boletes. They are not porcini/ceps but do belong to the same family of fungi that have do not have gills but a sponge under the caps. They are not slippery jacks so be very careful, the consequences of eating them are unknown. No matter how careful you are only a qualified expert can be your guide.
In Europe where there is a well established culture of collecting edible wild fungi and there are official channels to certify edibility. In France chemist shops have qualified staff to examine a foragers catch. In most European markets there is a stall where qualified experts certify and stamp a stall holders stock. Sadly no such service is available at local markets.

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This sequence was taken at 10 second intervals.
There are choice,edible blue staining Boletes in Europe; but this is NOT one of them. True identification can take more than 25 steps including a highly magnified image of the minute spores.

For the serious collector click below but!!
PLEASE TAKE CARE

Pomegranates Red/White

2010-04-02T19:56:00.002+11:00

This is the finest time of year for the temperate garden, late ripening figs, chestnuts, hints of a great fungi season are revealed. Apples are at their best, the pears are ripe, quinces are on the way and... The Pomegranates Have Landed.

Over the years the problem with pomegranates [for me] has been how to tell the white seeded ones from the red ones without cutting them up? The white ones are very sweet but there is little complexity compared to the red ones that have a sublime sweet/sour balance with a unique flavour.
Last week I plucked up the courage to ask my pomegranate seller, a gentle Iranian man at the top of A shed at the Victoria Market how to tell the difference. At first they both look the same but take a very close look; the white ones have a telltale white ghosting around the tiny spots on the skin but the red ones have even smaller spots just a bit closer together with no white outline.

For an introduction to the extraordinary history/cultivation/use of this fruit you could start with Louis Glowinski’s complete guide to Fruit Growing in Australia and meet Persephone and her downfall with Hades due to seven pomegranate seeds. The symbolism continues throughout the ancient world.
You may have noticed a marked improvement in the quality of Australian pomegranates that up to a few years ago were nowhere near the quality of imported American varieties. The flower is spectacular, its up there with a passionfruit flower for sheer beauty. In the city I often glean a few fruit from neglected trees planted for decoration. I use them fo enliven rice dishes added at the end after cooking or add them to salads. They are a splendid addition to yoghurt, make a spectacular sorbet, the juice can be used in the cooking of duck or lamb and of course is the base for grenadine.
But I prefer them raw as a cool contrast in a spicy pilaf or tajine.

Back to the harvest......

A Change of Season

2010-03-15T21:43:00.004+11:00

No I have not abandoned the blog, gone to tweetworld or suffering from alcoholic amnesia; just a bad case of Telstranitis.
While this temporary hiatus has been holding me back from pestering you here, it seems that more and more people are reading when I am not posting so there could be a lesson in it?
But thanks for your concern; all is better now with a new electric wireless thingie that lets you use my bandwidth while parked on the Cape Otway Road.

Almost as soon as I turn my back summer has slipped away and we have glorious autumnal days with cool dew filled mornings full of ripe surprises in the garden.

In the month since I have updated the site the garden has reached a screaming crescendo...

Why don’t we see Tomatillo in the markets? We have about a ton coming into full ripeness all self sown with a flavour that puts a smile on even the most experienced foodie[see later] .

Nectarines with cardamom, peaches in saffron syrup, figs in verbena yuzu cordial have been giving the stove and preserving pan a good seeing to. The salad garden is a riot of samphire, mustard greens, cos, purslane all rushing into a seedy surge of frenzy. [gardeners amongst you will dig it]

Classes have started with a bang, the tomatoes are screaming “ pick me! pickle me! dry me! sauce me now!!!

While the olives are scaring me with a later than planned ripening. I am negotiating a deal with them that if they ripen before we go on holidays [Its not Constantinople] they will get a new fusti for the oil.

But flavour of the week has been Garlic duck fat and Blood!

Click HERE for the full the Fearless Vampire Killer Cookkwiz There is a prize of a cooking school spot for 2 for the best entry. Answers with question numbers on the comments will do.

COOKING CLASSES 2010

2010-02-10T15:40:00.013+11:00

Cooking Classes for 2010 will commence on Monday March 8 and run every Monday till Monday
May 11 when Sunnybrae goes on holidays till June 12 when the restaurant re-opens. We will definitely be doing a class on Easter Monday.
Classes will then re-commence on Monday June 14 which is the Queens Birthday holiday.
Classes begin at 9.30 for 10 am with a good coffee and a bite before we sit down informally to discuss the days ‘cooking. Bread baking in one form or other is always covered in every class and the wood oven is often also used if the occasion calls for it.
The format is to prepare a multi course seasonal lunch utilising the freshest and most interesting ingredients we can source from as close to Sunnybrae as possible.
The maximum class size is 12 this allows time to cover any specific questions or techniques that each participant may wish to explore.

All classes are hands on, but not like a formal class room, we divide all the tasks between the group and I demonstrate all techniques as required. We pick whatever is suitable from the garden and also source produce from the gardens of our neighbours.
You can also request techniques or use of ingredients with which you may not have much confidence or things that you may enjoy, but do not often get the chance to cook.
We sit down to lunch around 1.30pm and partners or friends can join us for lunch for $55 per person.Please bring an apron or you can purchase one of Diane’s designs.
Good sensible shoes, a sharp knife as well as a good sense of humour/adventure are also welcome.
Costs $110 person including wines and GST or $100 per person for groups of 4 or more
Standby: Call one day before on the Sunday and if there is room the same discount applies.
Telephone bookings only on 52362276

If you wish to stay in the area details are at http://sunnybraerestaurantandcookingschool.blogspot.com/2008/09/ants-or-accommodation-near-to-sunnybrae.html

When we first began to present classes over 18 years ago we were determined to create an atmosphere as natural as possible where like minded people could get together learn some interesting techniques, discover some unusual seasonal ingredients and express in a practical way their food and wine interests in a convivial space and then join into a good discussion while enjoying the fruits of the day’s work. We get a good mix of keen amateur cooks, kitchen obsessives, industry members, and complete beginners that quickly grasp that you can get whatever level of skill and experience you need from our hands on classes. A professional cook will be interested in how to make 4 kilo of quenelles and then cook them as required but a home cook may wish to know how to cook 12 serves at once and not have a nervous breakdown during the dinner party. Each will get what they are looking from being a part of the workshop. The main difference between restaurant cooking and home cooking is that in a restaurant the menu and each dish is deconstructed to parts that are easy to assemble as required usually in great quantities. Our classes show how some of these skills can be used at home without staff and all the expensive gadgets that professional kitchens use.
I must be swimming against the tide. The current spate of cooking shows like Masterchef and such have added a very commercial style competitive edge to home cooking. Commercial television has made us believe that everybody wants to cook like a fashionable restaurant cook and call themselves a chef?

These commercial television shows survive on subliminal product placement and blitz marketing of the advertisers. If you think that it’s about getting young people involved and interested in cooking then I believe you have fallen for the spin. Celebrity chefs are also used to add a level of credibility and mystique that is tempered abruptly as the next Coles ad segues into a reinforcement of the last 6 product placements you just saw. It’s no use filtering out the ads as they are deeply positioned into all the content. Then there are also those annoying ads’ purporting to sell processed food as “Restaurant Quality”. Sadly the double meaning is more often the case. It used to be “Home Made” but that meaning has also been corrupted long ago.

I like television but most of these competition style shows are just so humourless. The only one that works for me is Iron Chef. I long for a cooking show equivalent of Rockwiz even the Coopers ads have style.

Families that have a strong link to cultural food traditions always understand that the finest cooking is kept in the home. Family comes first. Restaurants are for celebrations and social occasions and quite formal traditions apply to how these public occasions are used. One type of restaurant for business one for shmoozing, one for l'affaire and so on. When you are invited to a traditional home for a meal you know the bonds are getting close.

In Australia many people always socialise even with close friends in a restaurant as they feel uncomfortable that a home cooked meal may not come up to the expectations of their guests.

The current culture of analysing every detail of a meal whether in a home or at a restaurant has severely distracted us from our dining companions. Recently during a 10 course degustation meal we were interrupted by our very personaable and professional waiter over 10 times giving us the detail of our bite sized courses and accompanying wines. To not engage in some sort of dialogue with him would hurt his highly trained sensibilities and could make us feel uninterested in him and the food. So we ask politely where does this come from? what is that? and before you know it you have spent the evening focussed purely on the food and wine when you really wanted to catch up with your friends and also savour some fine food and wine.
My Kitchen Rules and other such commercial television shows just perpetuate the battle-of-the-chefs syndrome.

Conviviality and hospitality are concepts that embrace both the restaurant and the home but have very different meanings in each context. At a restaurant you do not want the waiter to become your de-facto best mate or teacher and at a private home you do not expect the host to assume the role of a sommelier or a waiter. When you are comfortable with your culinary life the real purpose of sharing a table can be enjoyed.

More here

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Epicurean Graphics by Les Mason

2010-01-27T22:37:00.006+11:00

A special extra box arrived with the wines from Crittenden Estate today It was a box of Epicurean magazines from 1968 to 1988. Twenty years of how fine food and wine was developing in Australia. Garry knows I collect food and wine ephemera and kindly sent them along with the Crittenden Estate Arneis, Moscato and Savignin, varieties that are not found on this side of the bay.
The first thing that jumped out at me while unpacking the magazines was how extraordinary the early graphics were. . The title pages reveal the early art director as Les Mason, “who was considered by his peers to be the seminal force in the establishment of graphic design in Melbourne in the 1960s and '70s....”
Link to The Age obit here
You can see the resonances of Les mason's style in many contemporary artworks from Deborah Halpern to Reg Mombassa
Then as I started to get into the content of the magazines I was drawn along a journey guided by many of the best, most articulate and passionate people that shaped the way the food and wine industry is right now in Australia.
Penny Smith, Marian Halligan. Len Evans, Diane Holouigue, Mietta, Dan Murphy, Ian Hickinbotham, and Oscar Mendelssohn, the list of contributors is extraordinary and long. We see the first review for Jacques Reymond and Tansy Goode. Mietta talks to a very disillusioned Alain Chapel who is all gloom and doom about the loss of tradition in French cooking.The first run of the sous-vide revolution kicks off. Tony Bilson is reviewed by Len Evans at Tony’s Bon Gout then later at Kinsellas. A very young Terry Durack writes with a wry Australian humour and passion on 3 star dining in France.
The early years 1968--1975 give perspective to a time before I started on this journey, then in the later volumes I am confronted by the very events that dragged my generation very willingly into a life of hospitality. Many of the recipes recorded have stood the test of time but those that copied the “flavour of the month” Nouvelle Cuisine from European sources look just as silly as the aspic and chaud froid disasters of a previous generation copying the last gasps of la Grande Cuisine. I wonder how young cooks now starting out will look back at the current micro-molecular smears and splodges in 40 years? Probably in 5 dimensions on media that not even Apple has dreamed about.....

THE STING

2010-01-20T20:25:00.009+11:00

A couple of months ago on an early morning walk I came upon this seething mass of buzzing bees parked on an olive tree next to the hive. Alfred aka THE STING is my bee buddy, but he was away and unable to come to the rescue. It looked like our queen was banished from the hive by a new queen. He is called THE STING as he often drives arround in an old Land Rover troop carrier with the beekeepers headgear on. But I know its really Alfred.

The question was did our queen abdicate or was she banished?
Something had to be done quickly. With the magic of the electric telephone THE STING was able to direct me from afar to simply catch the swarm. He would come the next day to collect it. Now I don’t know about you but I had never captured a swarm of bees before THE STING insisted that as it was early in the morning, and a cool day, they would simply drop into a box without drama.I donned my best “protective “gear of a fly net, garden gloves and [as it was the first container that I could see in the shed and it had wheels ] I grabbed a wheelie-bin and decided to have a go. I must have been half asleep. The strategy was to take a pruning saw place the wheelie-bin under the swarm and cut the branch dropping the bees, avec branch, into the bin. But as I put the bin under the bees and touched the branch they miraculously, just as THE STING had said, all dropped directly into the bin and I could close the lid in a flash. Feeling very clever I stashed the swarm in the shed and waited for THE STING to come the next day. He checked the old hive and said there was indeed a new queen and took the swarm away. The next day he rang to say that yes the old queen was with the swarm and he could bring them back in a new hive in a few days.
So she was indeed banished by a new queen. That was a couple of months ago and last week THE STING returned, checked the hive again and we processed the new seasons’ honey.

A hive produces about 30kg of honey a year and now with 2 hives we have to find new ways to use it.

All our ice creams are now made with honey instead of sugar. This week there was a windfall of red currants so a redcurrant and honey gelati is being paired with verbena poached stone fruits.

The painful sting came today as I was mowing around the olives near the hive ,not serious but a reminder that we all need a STING every now and again. So if you are wlking arround our olive grove bee warned!!

The old Ice cream machine is a 1950’s Husquavarna manual salt and ice model.The manual contains a recipe for Italian Tutti Frrutti gelato. The modern machine is a Carpigiani if it was the STIG driving it he would rate it cool, very cool.

Return of The Fearless Vampire Killers

2010-01-12T12:56:00.014+11:00

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival

And the Alburrian Ambassador

Cordially Invite You to

The Return of the Fearless Vampire Killers

Saturday March 13 and Sunday March 14

for

A Celebration of garlic in all its forms.

Begin with a gartini

Followed by 5 courses of seasonal Sunnybrae specialities

Highlighting the many forms of the stinking rose

With matching wines

No garlic in the desserts but there will be savouries

During the afternoon there will be a

COOKWIZ With a 10 Kilo Prize

$110 including wines

Book early before the program goes into the paper in February

http://www.melbournefoodandwine.com.au/

Gastrodamus or The List I Write Every Day.

2010-01-01T09:03:00.001+11:00

I would like to wish all readers a very safe, humorous and of course highly opinionated New Year....
We got 20mm rain overnight, one of the best beginnings to a new year for a long time.
No time for the obligatory Best Of or Gastrodamus [new Gastrodamus blog?] list [GMAB] instead , I’m posting the list I write every day
The Prep List.

This list usually grows as the day gets going. Dishes to be tweaked today include 2 new desserts, set up for new lamb dish, pillau strategy, remmber what a no fructose diet is? And so on..

For all of you cooking today I salute you, those of you grazing remember the cooks are also having fun.

Friday Jan 1 2010

Rory To Pick and Wash.

Aptenia one large bucket, Garlic pearls small bucket, Rucheta big bucket, Tarragon small container
Rock Samphire 4l box, fennel shoots for soup, Chives large bunch for soup, parsley as much as possible, bay leaves for panna cotta and stocks, zucchini flowers 20, nasturtiums for both days.
Oregano, sage, thyme, Perilla, lovage small containers, big bowl of lemon verbena. peach and raspberry leaves small amount. As much purslane as possible, all ripe berries, 3 cucumbers, all courgettes, savoury, Big bucket of rhubarb, oak leaf and cos. Horseradish.

Prep

Rreduce all stocks
Red wine stock, hare infusion over veal stock, morello stock, porcini stock
Caponata base, un-cure salmon and pork.
Dressings and salads, check watermelons. Beetroot relish, clean asian herbs.
Spice mix for lamb and shrimp spice and garlic oil, tomato oil, pilau kit.
Aioli, Mayo, Anchoiade, Remoulade,
Poach and skin sweetbreads, cook Malabar and leeks, cut red caps. Cook staff lunch.
Make hare crepinettes, Turkey garnish, peel and poach turnips,
Pancake mix, cook poppyseed filling, crème Anglaise, panna cottas, brullee
New Berry dessert, slow cook rhubarb, mangoes pureed, saffron mascarpone.
Clean passionfruit, make orange marmalade, Ice cream base, set all ice creams ready to churn Sat.
Sorbet base lemon verbena and cassis, star anis Anglaise for pav filling, cardamom mint syrup for cherries, de pip cherries.
Refresh starter, make big biga.
Set wood oven
Re read Frank Morehouse's Loose Living

PEACHY KEEN

2009-12-24T23:02:00.008+11:00

A perfect flavour, that’s what all cooks are looking for. But modern food production is indeed a hungry beast with an insatiable appetite for raw materials. Flavours are big business. As we sit down to Christmas dinner to try to understand even the simplest meal requires a grasp of many disciplines. This year’s food issue of the New Yorker contains an exciting essay on flavour called the Taste Makers by Raffi Khatchadourian. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/23/091123fa_fact_khatchadourian
I recommend spending the few dollars needed to download it if you haven’t seen it yet. Our tweetened web attention spans rarely give us research and writing like this.
Raffi takes us on a trip into the world of the taste makers, the corporations and scientists that dictate the way we taste and how we will taste in the future.
Rory our new apprentice joined us a couple of months ago and constantly reminds me how important learning to taste is to the cook.
As we introduce new flavours to this young man, [who was born in the same year as we opened Sunnybrae, now thats scary] I am very pleased to see that he has an open palate. He is willing to try everything, leaving cultural prejudice behind, while absorbing tastes he has never tried before with enthusiasm and joy. But he has a secret pleasure Red Bull. Raffi, in the New Yorker story casts a light on just how that particular flavour was created as he explains how Deitrich Mateschitz the co-founder of Red Bull went out of his way to create a deliberately unbalanced flavour that would signify the oomph that these rather dubious energy drinks are selling and how every energy drink after that had to now also contain these unbalanced notes that subversibly signify energy .
When Rory first tasted Morello Cherries he said that they tasted like Doctor Pepper.
Now, the scary thing about the New Yorker story to me, is how these flavour scientists now also relate new natural flavours while tasting rare exotic fruit [from the world’s largest heritage citrus orchard in California] to branded products like Snapple. So the dialogue has come full circle. But the Doctor Pepper taste that Rory loves is of course also found naturally in Morello Cherries [benzaldahyde] and also in the pips of the white peaches that we picked today. To understand the flavour compounds that make up this simple wonder of nature that is a ripe white peach is one thing, but to taste the ripe fruit warmed by the sun is to be alive.

Happy whatever you want to call it....

In response another link from Ms Bliss
For more on the taste trekkers in Vietnam go to http://jamesoseland.com/writings/the-taste-makers

ITS TOO DARN HOT

2009-12-17T08:38:00.005+11:00

I was going to tell you about a book that has eluded me for many years until yesterday when I stumbled upon i t in Clunes. Its called Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons, http://www.culinate.com/books/book_excerpts/Stalking+the+Wild+Asparagus one of the early 20th century forager-writer-cooks. Way before the word locavore entered our culinary lexicon Euell was out there picking, cooking and extolling the virtues of “weeds” such as Calamus, Scarlet Sumac and many more including one of my favourites Purslane.

Then I thought I better alert you to the inferior form of Purslane being sold commercially by the recherché providores and show you the preferred culinary form that we love to see self-seeded each year in our garden.

But while taking the photos of the different forms of purslane it occurred to me that while we were getting into the succulents, I had better describe Aptenia possibly the most common but not as yet trendy succulent that many of you will already have in your gardens.

Aptenia is all over the garden and as I was stalking it with the camera I noticed that the nasturtiums were making seeds and I had better remind you of the succulent seed pods Nasturtiums make. When young and moist they are such a treat in salads. But no sooner had I clicked a couple of these I realised that I had never written about the plant they were growing under, the Jostaberries, those little but abundant thornless gooseberry blackcurrant crosses that were just ripening, and to tell you how easy they are to grow. But as soon as I had I taken my eye off these I noticed that the black nightshades needed pulling out, or did they instead need picking? Deadly nightshade? Or Black nightshade? Wonderberry? or Blunderberry? But if I started on this I would have to remind you of Luther Burbank http://www.scribd.com/doc/938177/Deadly-Nightshades-PDF and how he was nearly undone by these nightshades. While on the solanaceae I realised that I had posted on Tomatillos and Cape Gooseberries before, but I had forgotten to water or write about the ground cherries, that other Physalis, possibly the finest one of all. Then the hose started to get a life of its own and dragged me to the Lime and Lemon Verbenas that also desperately needed to be watered and then they started to complain that they too have never had their own entry here. But neither had the Drip Still described by Euell in Stalking the Wild Asparagus that lets you distil the essence of such elusive aromas as the Verbenas with simple pots and bowls that are found in every domestic kitchen. But I cant tell you about that either because it’s too darn hot........

Menu For Hope

2009-12-14T00:00:00.002+11:00

What is Menu for Hope?
Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising campaign hosted by Pim of Chez Pim and a revolving group of food bloggers around the world. Five years ago, the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia inspired Pim to find a way to help, and the very first Menu for Hope was born. The campaign has since become a yearly affair. For the past three years, Menu for Hope raised nearly a quarter of million dollars in support of the good work of the UN World Food Programme, helping to feed hungry people worldwide.

Each December, food bloggers from all over the world join the campaign by offering a delectable array of food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. Anyone – and that means you too - can buy raffle tickets to bid on these prizes. For every $10 donated, you earn one virtual raffle ticket to bid on a prize of their choice. At the end of the two-week campaign, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim.

This year Sunnybrae is offering a prize of a cooking class for 4 people [value $400] on any Monday as available after February 2010 when our new classes begin.

Ed Charles from tomatom.com is hosting this regions prizes. You can make a bid after December 14 at

Our prize code is AP03. For more details see here : http://www.tomatom.com/

Sippets

2009-12-10T23:39:00.011+11:00

Sippet

[Cookery] a small piece of something, esp a piece of toast or fried bread eaten with soup or gravy.

[used as a diminutive of sop]

From the exhibition of the year.
Is John Brack our most inspired artist?

Seen in Victoria St Brunswick. How one grapevine became a vineyard and ate the carport.

The perfect Xmas present for a budding little Heston Jnr.

Would you ask for this to be heated up in a restaurant?

The joy of sharing a plate

but.....

At Christmas lunch remember to save some room for desert.

Like this raspberry tart.
Classic lemon Tart as per Roux Brothers but add an elegant sufficiency [where are you Stephanie?] of ripe raspberries.....

PS the brothers Roux forgot to tell us to warm the filling before adding to the hot blind baked tart shell. This stops the filling from separting into two layers while cooking.

Give'm Linen

2009-11-30T17:58:00.006+11:00

It all started quite innocently while weeding the garlic. I noticed that the white cherry tree, which usually gets stripped by the birds before we can get around to netting them, had quite a bit of ripe fruit on it. While picking them I realised, it was time to not only get them onto the menu here, but to alert those of you in our area that Ken Campbell’s wonderful pick- your-own Morello cherry orchard at Mt Duneed will be ready for picking around Christmas time.

But it was when Diane kindly offered to find the vintage tablecloth with cherries on it for a suitable background for the main photo for this post that I realised her innocent? purchases at op shops and garage sales had turned into
[a]a magnificent collection?
Or
[b] a magnificent obsession?

But of course it’s both. She has gathered together more than 200 and we do have a cedar table that needs clothing, so two? are carefully chosen each week, to feature in the dining room.

This is much more useful [as I have been often told] than the more than 200 pre 1940 cooking booklets that I have collected with similar zeal . My only reply is that they take up much less space than the linen. The tablecloths, breakfast cloths and booklets too, illustrate the development of graphic style, provide historical markers and display a kitsch sensibility that we both love.

After finding the Cherry cloth it was time for her to re-classify them and get a bit of order into the collection. Her classifications go something like this. Oceania, Australian Animals subsets of Koalas, Platypus, Kangaroo. Floral Australian, Floral new Zealand , Floral International, Places, Events, Culinary, Olympics.Breakfast cloths, multiples in different colours. Woven, printed, top 40 and so on.
But my recipe comes not from thevintage pamphlet boxes but from Austin de Croze for a traditional Clafoutis. He writes..
“Cherries covered in a custard of eggs, flour, caster sugar, salt and milk”
Serve hot sprinkled with caster sugar.
He trusts you with the quantities and so shall I.
We sometimes add Kirsch and a touch of vanilla to the custard. There is also a neat trick to serving them elegantly. The hardest part is getting them onto a plate without sticking to the baking dish.
For individual servings or larger shared platters bake on top of a circle of silicon paper [gladbake] and when ready slide onto heated plates.

Back to the garlic....

The title comes from Ludwig Bemelmans' Hotel Splendide highly recomended.

Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to stall today..

2009-11-12T23:15:00.004+11:00

It’s not often that you can say that you would like to be stuck in a lift, except of course if it’s with

[XXXXX] fill in your idols of choice.

Elevators often initiate candid conversations.We know it’s a short ride, where we don’t have the responsibility of continuing a conversation as within seconds we are free to simply go our own way.

But today as the plastic burr-walnut and stainless steel industrial sized people mover at Footscray market crawled between floors, I was playing my usual game of fantasising about what everybody was going to do with their shopping?

The Samoan lady with the box of green bananas and box of onions was obviously cooking a whole pig or two for a family feast to welcome some visiting relatives. The pig I surmised was being prepared by the blokes who had also copped the job of digging the hole for the fire pit for what was to be just another version of the great Aussie barbeque weekend. The Indian family with 3 big boxes of mangoes had obviously volunteered for the job of mango lassi makers at the local temple feast. The Slavic looking elderly man with the bag of mixed capsicums was getting in some early preserving action for summer. The Vietnamese are easy, they are all making soup. The lady with far too much dill was clearly from Hanoi and getting organised to make Cha ca the North Vietnamese famous soup, flavoured with heaps of dill and turmeric that you assemble at the table.
The impossibly tall African lady was going home to cook her eggplants with a goat curry.
The young alternative Australian couple with the 3 trolleys of small packages are evidently rostered to do the weeks shopping for their student shared house.

But all too soon the ride is over the doors open and we go our separate ways.....

Me, to make fish stock as soon as I get back.

For a perfectly clear fish stock.

Use only white fish heads and bones.

Remove the gills and any offal left on the fish carcasses

Wash all the fish heads and bones.

Make a mirepoix of carrot, onion, celery, fennel stalks, lemon, parsley stalks and bay leaves.

Lay the mirepoix on the bottom of a large stainless steel pot.

Arrange the fish heads and bones on top.

Add about 3cm of water to the bottom of the pot and cook on a medium heat with the lid on till the fish heads and bones are slightly steamed and any flesh on the bones look white.
[This will set and stabilise the blood and all the bits that might dissolve into your stock and make it cloudy. ]

Cover generously with cold water. Boil for one minute and simmer for 30 minutes on a very low heat. Let it steep off the stove for a further20 minutes.

Strain and chill. When cold remove any of the fish fats that will be set on the surface. Remove any small globules of fat with a kitchen paper. Reduce by a quater and you will have a perfectly clear fish broth. We serve ours with green garlic, chopped fennel, parsley and drizzled egg with a side dish of sautéed river shrimp dusted with a spice mix of sesame seeds, isot pepper and salt.

VALE BARBIE DOG

2009-11-06T19:54:00.001+11:00

BARBIE DOG

1 APRIL 1994 - 6 NOVEMBER 2009

My island herbs

2009-10-28T10:12:00.006+11:00

Its always such a treat to visit a passionate gardener.
The herb garden at Sunnybrae has suffered over the last few years and while many of the standard stock has survived we have lost a lot of special plants collected from friends and visitors. Judi and Ken Forrester’s Otway Herbs just outside Apollo Bay is an inspiration. Hidden away in the hills overlooking Bass straight Judi has over many years created a magnificent collection of unusual forms of many herbs that just do not appear in standard nurseries. She travels the world and Australia collecting unusual heritage plants that form the basis of her beautiful biodynamic nursery. Thymes from the Aeolian islands, unusual mints, pungent savouries collected from neighbours and other collectors vie for space amongst unusual berries, succulents and mints. The most unexpected find on this visit was a native celery collected from the Kent group of islands in Bass Straight.

My mates regularly holiday on Erith island in this magnificent part of the world and I have fond memories of a visit there in the late seventies.

It was a short visit I was cooking at the Grace Darling Hotel at the time and snuck down for a couple of days leaving a young cook Giles who had just arrived from France to hold the fort while I was away. We organised for him to come down on the boat that was to bring me back but as it happens the weather closed in and the boat was unable to leave. So here I was on Erith and Gigi in Port Albert waiting for the boat! No cook in the kitchen. As it happened a helicopter arrived with a cinematographer who was shooting a documentary and they landed on Erith. After a little local hospitality was offered they kindly took me back to Melbourne but not before skimming the beaches of the coast with the doors of the chopper removed. An hour and a half later, and wearing just a T shirt and shorts I was dropped off on the Yarra ready to do service that night.

I went back the following year and on that occasion we sailed back overnight with a full moon on calm seas via Tasmania.

The new celery will have prime spot in the garden.

http://www.otwayherbs.com.au/

The Staff of Life

2009-10-17T20:04:00.009+11:00

What is it with Bakers and tatts?
Called into my favourite bakery La Madre in Geelong to get some flour on Thursday. Anton Spoljaric started La Madre in Bell Post Hill about 10 or so years ago and sold it to Tez Kemp and Anna Spurling about 3 years ago. Eight months ago they seamlessly moved into brand new premises across the road and the bread is still as wonderful as ever. John Schirmer is the head baker with Ivan Spoljaric

[Anton’s brother] and Dean Gorsuch his assistants, as well as a handful of other useful helpers .

Amongst the shiny new equipment there is a trusty old two arm mixer rarely seen these days except in the best of artisan bakeries. These slow old darlings handle dough gently allowing very high moisture content to be developed.
Around the shaping table the ink gets a good airing..... check out the ink [a sheaf of wheat] on arm of the young baker on the cover of Alan Scott and Daniel Wing’s wonderful book the Bread Builders. One of the first most important lessons we have learned about naturally leavened bread is not to keep too much starter. We use most of it and only keep what is still clinging to the sides of the container.
If you keep too much it will be filled with dead, expended yeast cells and lactic acid. Keep only about 5 % and refresh it will keep the fermentation vigorous and your bread will not display the telltale sign of overt sourness that lots of old starter gives. Today’s loaves were just fine.

Now will it be a cheeky Louis Wain Feline 09? a red heart or perhaps a sweetbread brioche?, crossed chef’s knives? Or just the stripes from normal wear and tear?

Link to La Madre Bakery

It Falleth Like the Gentle Rain

2009-10-03T10:44:00.005+10:00

Finally it looks like a real season and we can plant out the garden properly. Seedlings started. Halleluya.

Back to the bread......

Thanks Anna for this link.

YES

2009-09-30T08:13:00.001+10:00

Secret Artichoke Business

2009-09-24T21:34:00.012+10:00

"It is good for a man to eat thistles and to remember that he is an ass”
So wrote E.S Dallas in Kettner’s Book of the table 1877.
“But the artichoke” he continued “is the best of thistles, and the man who enjoys it has the satisfaction of feeling that he is an ass of taste.”

We’re talking globe artichoke here, Cynara Scolymus not the equally delicious tuber Jerusalem artichoke Helianthus tuberosus often dubbed the fartychoke for its antisocial properties. To add to the confusion there is also the Chinese artichoke Stachys Sieboldii another edible tuber of the mint family.
Globe artichokes have been relegated to the too hard basket of many home cooks for too long.
Don’t be intimidated they are versatile, easy to prepare and have a very different flavour to the jars of preserved artichoke hearts available in the deli.
A good way to learn how to use an artichoke is to grow one, where the full cycle of culinary possibility is revealed.
They are not difficult to grow; it’s a thistle after all.
Artichokes arrived with the first fleet and were planted on Norfolk Island.
Victoria with a long cool growing period provides the ideal climate for this splendid architectural addition to the perennial border or vegetable garden and grows 90% of commercial crops. Ironically Sydney where they are harder to grow has the highest demand.
Most local varieties originate from the Green Globe; the shape can vary between spherical, ovoid or cylindrical. There are also pointy purple Roman varieties available.
At first large leaves emerge with a strong central flower stalk crowned by what the Italians have affectionately named ‘la mamma’ the largest flower head. As the plant matures, smaller heads the figli or children develop between the leaves down to the tiny the nipoti or nephews the size of a small coin. Commercial crops only concentrate on the matriarch, with the little ones considered too costly to harvest.
Modern commercial varieties such as Global Star mature early and are used as an annual increasing the market value. These are often protected by Plant Variety Rights that require the growers to pay a royalty to the owners of the rights. The concept of P.V.R. is getting a little scary because we have the ppotential to loose good flavoursome cultivars to an increasingly homogenised market.
Whether at the market or in the garden play close attention to the heads, they should have a pleasant distinctive aroma, a sign of being freshly picked. Tightly formed, firm, heavy without a bump on the side, a telltale sign that the hairy choke or immature flower has started to form. At this stage they may be eaten raw with the outer leaves removed. Leave about 15 centimetres of stalk attached, peel it and the core of the stalk reveals a creamy white often-discarded bonus of pure artichoke bliss.
Most of the bitterness is in the stringy skin and outer leaves so don’t lick your fingers after preparation.
As the flower bud matures another seldom seen speciality is revealed, the large solid base or fond often described in classical french recipes. Summer irrigated crops yield the largest bases. These provide a natural container to hold your favourite toppings.
When the plant has finished budding, cut it back to ground level and about 3 new plants will emerge. Divide the plant with a bit of the base root attached and before you know it you will have enough to share and swap with your neighbours.
Artichokes contain a compound Cynarin that for about 70% of us makes the taste of what follows sweeter for a short time. Cynarin also has many medicinal properties including the lowering of cholesterol. Avoid serving artichokes at wine tastings, as they will alter the taste. Frying reduces this effect.
Cynar the Italian aperitif made from globe artichokes makes a good change for those that love Campari or other bitter drinks.
Cardoons Scolymus Cardunculus a close relative to the globe artichoke is another neglected vegetable grown mainly for the large blanched stalks. They need to be peeled unless very young. In Spain the small spiny heads are used as a substitute for rennet in cheese making.

HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM YOUR THISLES
Remove the layers of tough outer leaves, trim the top, peel the stalk and rub with lemon. This is common to most recipes.

If they have the telltale bump indicating a choke, cook them in your preferred way first and then cut them in half to reveal the hairy choke: Now softened, the choke is easy to remove with a knife or spoon.

Raw
For very young ones only. Remove the outer leaves peel the stalk and finely slice them. Dress with your best olive oil, lemon juice, sea-salt and freshly ground pepper. They make a delicious salad with Parmigiano Reggiano young raw broad beans and radicchio conveniently also in season.
Boiled
After cleaning, cook them for about 10 minutes in plenty of unsalted water to which you have added the juice and squeezed body of a couple of lemons. Place a plate on top to keep them under water this stops them from discolouring. A skewer will easily pierce them when cooked. Toss in a vinaigrette to stop further discolouration.
They marry well with olives, capers and garlic or perhaps preserved lemon and samphire.
Fried
Clean as above and press gently to open the flower heads. Fry the whole flower and stalk at about 140oC for about 3 minutes in olive oil. Remove. Just before serving sprinkle with a little water to and turn the oil up to about 180oC. Fry again till the outer leaves are crisp and the centre is soft to a sharp skewer. Be careful they can splash hot oil. Drain onto kitchen paper and serve immediately with a spiced salt. A speciality from the old Jewish quarter in Rome.
Castroville in California is the undisputed Artichoke capital of North America. Roadhouse specials featuring ‘Choke Chips’ the deep-fried stalks abound. The annual artichoke festival is held each May. In 1949 a young starlet Marilyn Monroe was crowned the first artichoke queen. Castroville has never recovered from the visit with Busby Berkley-like artichoke formations of Marilyn look-alikes gracing the parade.
Braised
Clean as above, cut the stalk off at the base and gently open up the flower heads. Lightly stuff with a mixture of parsley, lemon rind, garlic and soft seasoned breadcrumbs. Drizzle with vinaigrette made with a fine olive oil, add the stalks to the tray and braise tightly covered in a moderate oven for about 30 minutes. Remove the cover, baste with the pan juices and cook with the cover off for 10 minutes to crisp the tops. As your confidence grows vary the fillings but use restraint, it is the artichoke that should shine.
Over Hot Coals
A Sicilian speciality. Choose large heads but do not remove the outer leaves.
Cut across the top removing the top 2cm, and remove the stalk. Gently open the flower heads, brush with lemon juice or white wine and insert a mixture of garlic, oregano, salt and pepper between the leaves. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and when the barbeque coals have died down to a gentle glow, place them directly into the coals cut side up until the outer leaves are completely charred. To eat them discard the burned outer leaves and enjoy the tender smoky bottoms of the remaining leaves.
For the Base or Fond
Best at the end of the season when the bases are quite large, about the size of a saucer. Slice and discard the top half, cook in more heavily acidulated water with the mandatory plate on top to keep them submerged. They are done when a skewer easily pierces through the base. [about 25 mins] Cool slightly and peel away the top, choke and stringy skin of the base. They will all be soft enough to gently remove. Brush with lemon juice and olive oil. Season and top with waxy potatoes roasted with garlic, a poached egg and Taleggio or perhaps fungi.
For Risotto
They can be sautéed raw at the beginning with the shallots releasing the most flavour or they can be added cooked halfway through the preparation.
Once the beautiful deep mauve flowers have started to appear they belong in a vase.

Spare a thought for *artichokes
They haven’t many chums
Most people go for sparrowgrass
Or exotic fancy plums.

*Apologies to Rhubarb and the unknown poet.

I wrote this for The Age about 2006?

Mango in the Seventies

2009-09-17T19:20:00.011+10:00

Sydney has Hair playing in Kings Cross and Victoria is in a Mango prohibition.
Its the The Seventies.
We liked to ban stuff in those days. The Little Red School Book, 6 Skyhooks tracks off one album, Khe San, pantsuits to work, Frank Hardy’s Power without glory. Tie me Kangaroo Down Sport was banned from the ABC and I kid you not Mangoes were banned in Victoria in the seventies. So when you made the pilgrimage to Sydney to see Tully and Keith Glass in Hair [statute of limitations] it was expected that you smuggled back a case of ripe mangoes in the boot. A recipe from OZ magazine [also banned] notes that the preferred way to eat mangoes in the seventies is in the bath with a couple of very close friends

Keith Floyd would have loved it that way... //www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/sep/15/keith-floyd-dies-celebrity-chef that.
Drawing above by Arone Meeks link here http://thegalleryeumundi.com.au/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=7_2

On a Savoury Note?

2009-09-03T21:52:00.014+10:00

In early 1979 we were cooking at the Grace Darling Hotel in Collingwood. This was when John Pinder’s Last Laugh theatre restaurant was reaching its glorious peak . The Grace Darling or, Grey Starling, as many chose to call it was home to the Lenny’s Black and White Minstrels from San Francisco. Hotel California meets Come in Spinner in Smith St Collingwood. We ran a gonzo kitchen pumping out bar meals of real schnitzel [Gruner's veal] mixed grills with fresh offal and Jonathan's’[shop next door] sausages to the bar where Jack Dyer would hold court while the art/food/theatre world was occasionally diverted into our dining room slumming it from Huey’s and Ziggie's Clichy across the road to indulge in what we thought was pretty cool food.
I recall one dish on the menu Gattopardo Visconti We had just read The Leopard and seen Burt Lancaster in the film and found a version of the recipe for the famous Timballo in A Portrait of Pasta by Anna del Conte . Del Conte uses hard boiled eggs but on closer investigation it needed unlaid egg yolks. I had often seen my mother buy these at the poultry shop in St Kilda so we were well set.
At the end of summer we all needed some well earned r and r and took off in an old Peugeot 404 to spend 4 days in the Little Desert in the Wimmera. After two days of camping someone had the bright idea to go to Bewora Waters for lunch. The stories coming down from Sydney of Tony and Gay Bilson’s cooking were like a powerful electromagnetic field to our inexperienced hungry ironised hearts. About two hours from Sydney we rang the restaurant and confessed that we had been camping and that we might not look too flash? maybe a bit dusty? on arrival. A stern but amused voice told us to relax and that all would be fine. On arrival alighting from the punt that took us over the river, we were greeted by Anders and escorted to a bathroom where fresh towels were waiting. Another level hospitality was revealed to some dirty young strangers, and our appreciation of service was changed forever.
At the end of the meal I was still regretting not ordering the sugar cured mackerel and ordered it for dessert.
So when people ask why we serve Black Pudding? or slowly poached livers? or rarebits of smelly cheese? or sweetbreads? or kippers? or salt cod? or sugar cured mackerel in the desert section?

I remember the fresh towels at Bewora Waters and ask them- don’t you sometimes wish to finish on a savoury note?

Desperately Seeking Yufka

2009-08-22T20:02:00.008+10:00

It always starts off as something simple.
A few of years ago I found an interesting pastry in the supermarket inside Footscray’s little Saigon. Its handmade in a filo style called Emek Yufka. Its a little thicker than commercial filo, round and just ever so slightly cooked. Over the last few years we have grown to love the versatile and tasty pastries that can be made with it. At the moment we are making kohlrabi, leek and parsnip strudel. Its the kind of pastry that you would love to be able to make but I lack the experience and skill or even courage to try to make it. Then three weeks ago the supermarket announced that due to the end of lease it was closing and our beloved Emek Yufka proved to be an elusive little number to find elsewhere.
Yufka, now the word itself started to stir a few questions. Forgive me if I go a bit Woodstock [40 years] but you really don’t know what you’ve got till it’s unavailable.
You may know Yufka, but to me this was starting to become a serious quest. A little digging around showed it to be one of many traditional Turkish pastries. It is available from quite a few other sources but Emek Yufka was something special. It cooked up better than any of the others so the hunt was on. Then luckily on Thursday I saw that the deli manager of the supermarket that is closing had moved to the small Polish/Baltic deli near the Hopkins St entrance of the market and she kindly ordered it for me and now after two weeks of withdrawal symptoms we and you can now get Emek again. This virtual quest took me to tribal villages with earth ovens, street food in Istanbul and to then Bas Foods at 423 Victoria St Brunswick.

This is a Turkishish Mediterranean Wholesalers with hookahs and teapots, loads of extraordinary teas, spices even fresh sweetbreads and even Gullac, this being the mythical dessert served at the circumcision of Suleiman the Magnificent.

I love the store but Bas Foods Yufka just doesn't compare to Emek for me.

They do sell the flour and the rolling pins to make it so now the challenge is on. The lady on the phone told me Emek Yufka is hand made by 70 year old ladies who start really early each morning but I have not had time to go to to the factory yet

[20 Waratah Street Campbelfield Melbourne tel 93592006]

In the meantime to see how Yufka is made in the traditional way click on these links they are amazing.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2118082/yufka_a_an_kad_nlar/
http://www.videosofturkey.com/video_details.asp?id=122
This one is the best when you have no rolling pin

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3105095/yufka/

For a bit of the history and an extraordinary food blog called The Culinary Anthropologist click here http://www.culinaryanthropologist.org/2008/05/flipping-gozleme.html
I will post on Gullac soon.

Classic Hits Choucroute

2009-08-11T16:08:00.005+10:00

Choucroute has hit the menu. Robert Courtine in his superb book The Hundred Glories of French Cooking traces the origins of the Choucroute to central Europe where he observes in a very patronising but rather endearing Parisian way, that soured cabbage sometimes hangs a little heavily over that particular culinary landscape. In Hungarian and many other mittel European kitchens, soured cabbage finds itself wrapped around stuffings of pork, veal and aromatics but in the classic Choucroute Garnie, its a medley, with as many variety meats as the cook can muster. Sausages, smoked pork, blood sausage, white pudding all add a layer of fat to both your waistline and also to the flavour. Don't get me wrong I like fat as much as any European but we have to remember that this is Australia and while its cold outside there is not a metre of snow around the barrels of mythical sauerkraut over the cellar. At least not here in Birregurra [9 degrees C today] So to keep the complexity of flavour provided by the chorus of preserved meat without the need for a triple bypass, we merely cut the charcuterie into very small dice and feature but one meat cooked to order in our version.
The cabbage both preserved and fresh is cooked with a small dice of smoked sausage, white pudding, Toulouse sausage, air dried ham, juniper berries, peppercorns, apple, dried mountain berries, garlic, Riesling, stock and smoked turkey. Red cabbage with the red meats, white with the white. When cooked they can be combined without the red cabbage bleeding into a blurr. This is topped with a slice of pork neck [scotch fillet] that has been cured with juniper and smoked paprika and slowly baked in the wood oven with just a little smoke.

Whats next for the menu any suggestions?

Compostulation

2009-08-04T14:55:00.009+10:00

Many visitors to the garden at Sunnybrae this month might think we have giant rabbits or badgers digging holes and making piles of dirt all over the garden. City slickers with minimalist gardens will also feel a little uneasy by the seemingly disordered state of the vegetable garden. But for us this is pay-dirt month, the month when all the organic waste from the kitchen from the previous year is revealed as compost. We don’t have an elaborate system for making compost but simply make a couple of large heaps with all the garden and kitchen organic wastes mixed with some mulch, straw, and sheep manure. We turn it over once a year and the result is about 30 cubic metres of what is priceless to us, well rotted compost. This is distributed all over the garden during winter in preparation for new plantings.
There has been a lot of chatter about the nutritional virtues of organic food in all the different forms of the media this month. A study by a British Standards authority was picked up by a news editor [or 30] and became a global story bringing out all the usual arguments about organic versus genetic versus conventional food production. We do organic because it’s easier. There is very little disease or pests in our garden as long as the plants are weeded and do not suffer from a lack of water. I am reluctant to use any heavy duty chemicals. I’m not saying its better or more nutritious but I do think food tastes better when tended with care and harvested at the right time.
Our cooking is also based on minimal interference with the natural flavours of our ingredients. I can’t see the point of de-hydrating something only to sprinkle it on to a liquid to create a surprising sensation in the palate of an unsuspecting diner. But that’s another story. I purchase some organic, some conventional and some imported produce that is not available here. The descision is not political but seasonable and what I think is reasonable. Too much psychobabble is published to preach and sell a position. We are in the country on fertile land and do what we can to get the most out of our situation.
Ten years ago the limits to what we could grow were tempered by the amount of time we could afford to spend on the garden as we had 4 good dams always full and overflowing in the middle of winter. Now we have the same 4 dams at less than 20% capacity. So planting is now based on how much water we can use.
This is the game plan for 2009-10.
Garlic lots more than last year. This will keep the beds tidy for a decision about how much summer produce can be planted after it’s picked.
Tomatoes about 200 plants. This is where most of the water will go.
Artichokes built up from new cuttings into 3 large beds. This has taken 3 years to achieve by taking the suckers from the pants and dividing them. We have a variety that is pure heart.
A new herb garden to include summer savoury as well as all the usual suspects.
An emphasis on melons this year with Ogden and Charentais to feature.
Re-establish the lost Physalis beds that include Cape gooseberry and ground cherries.
More edible succulents and hardy salad greens.
A new bed for table grapes.
And plant out whatever self seeds like the tomatillos.
The fruit trees that really suffered last year have had about 2 truckloads of mulch from across the road, when they thinned out some scraggy trees in their plantation,spread around them. The olives have been trimmed.
The asparagus will soon come into life. We can see buds on some of the trees.
Spring is nearly upon us.

A Lousey Story

2009-07-23T21:54:00.009+10:00

A good mate of mine was going through his late father’s papers and stumbled upon a folder that he thought I might enjoy reading. The modern history of wine as many of you know all too well, was rather rudely interrupted by an American louse that swept through the vineyards of Europe and also made a very unwelcome presence in the vineyards of Australia in the 1870’s.
The history of wine in the Geelong district has always been of interest to us as Diane’s great, great grandfather on her fathers side was an Alwin Seidel with vineyards at Ceres near Geelong. We have often visited the site of the Ceres Nursery and Vineyard, as it was called, to see the only remains, an old cellar. Wine has always been in Diane’s blood [now its mostly .05] with her great grandfather on her mother’s side, a Pierre Guillerme, being head cellarman at St.Huberts the Yarra Valley.
But back to the louse. Phylloxera Vastatrix is a small insect that feeds on and destoys the roots of European grapevines but does not attack American rootstock. The folder contained the sad story in the original government reports of how all the vines in the Geelong area were to be uprooted and destroyed.
The first report from 1878 is a short description of the spread of the insect in the vineyards with brief notes as to their size, location and condition. The second appendix in this report is an update of which ones had been uprooted and destroyed to that date.
The third report from 1880 is the Proceedings Of The Committee. This reads like a stage play with cross examinations of what appears to be rather innocent and uneducated farmers and their first reaction to seeds coming from America that appeared to be resistant to the disease. It makes heart breaking reading as so many of the names are still in the district and the place names are ones we travel through every week.
The third report from 1889 is by The Hon. J.W. Tavener, MP., Minister of Agriculture and gives a full report of the spread of the disease in France and how the problem is being addressed in Europe.

The fourth report is the saddest of all from A.R. Wallis who states...Sir- I have the honour to report that the work of eradicating the vineyards of the Geelong district within 3 miles of those that were infected ... have been destroyed.....
And that
"I am of the opinion that arrangements should be made this season to for the eradication of all the vines planted in the parishes of Barrabool, Gheringhap, and Moorpanyal: also in the Valley of the Moorabool river to the south boundary of the parish of Darravil, Germantown and Leigh road."
He goes on to say the rest are safe to leave for one more season when I guess they were all uprooted and would not return for many years.
A familiar name crops up in the first report Charles Louis Tetaz. I came across Tetaz while doing research for the Pettavel Restaurant in 2000. His great grandson John Tetaz produced a book “From Boudry to The Barrabool Hills The Swiss Vignerons of Geelong” that paints a very vivid picture of life in the wine trade in the 1860’s and 70’s. Sunnybrae was built in 1868 and reading his book brings us a little closer to understanding what life was like for these early pioneers.

It will take a bit of time to carefully read all the reports but I am looking forward to returning to an older time while drinking the very excellent new wines of the area. Time for a Prince Albert pinot....

Get On your Goat

2009-07-21T13:46:00.012+10:00

One of the most surprising reactions our diners have is to their first taste of goat and we are often asked where to source it.

Thompson Meats at the Victoria Market have taken on the role that the now retired market legend Alf Paulet had in supplying great offal, they also sell very fine goat meat grown in Gippsland in all the convenient cuts.

Many of you will be very familiar with the sweet taste and tender texture of young goat meat. Just as many of you will be a little confused and perhaps frightened by the unjust reputation that goat meat has, as having an overtly strong flavour and aroma. This is a myth.
Young goat, sometimes called kid or capretto is as tender as young spring lamb with a subtle light aroma that does not intensify during slow cooking. Because goat is leaner than lamb sometimes a little pork fat, bacon or duck fat can help to bring the cooking to a moist conclusion. Most Halal butchers will also have goat meat as it is very popular amongst the Middle Eastern and Asian communities and sold as “mutton”. This can be confusing but Halal goat meat is usually a little older than Kid or Capretto which is under 12 kilo per carcase, more like its two-tooth equivalent in lamb. The older carcass is sometimes also called Chevon . I like them both very much and the flavour of goat meat marries well with both European and Asian herbs and spices. Once we had a wine and food society function with lots of guessing games going on and some of the local farmers were very surprised that goat could taste so good and insisted that it was milk fed lamb.
Vietnamese butchers also stock young goat with the singed skin on.

They like to cook it with the skin on slowly till it attains a gelatinous texture and use it in various traditional ways. Morocco, Italy, Spain all have a rich tradition of cooking with goat. Australia is the largest exporter of goat meat in the world.

The cartoon is of course from Michael Leunig from Goatperson And Other Tales

Penguin 1999

Follow the Gumboots and Cane Baskets

2009-07-16T22:53:00.003+10:00

Busy week unable to post, but thought you might like to see the original photos from a story I wrote recently for the Age. Published a week ago.

The concierge at the hotel said in his best Chairman Kaga (flamboyant “Iron Chef” host) voice, “Follow the coloured gumboots and cane baskets”........

For the full story click the link below

http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2009/07/06/1246732281240.html

For the full photos click this ....http://picasaweb.google.com/sunnybraerestaurant/MarketTsukiji#

Menu Markers Notes from the Kitchen

2009-07-09T21:50:00.007+10:00

These wonderful sea urchin were at Footscray market last week, thin shells, fine spikes very flavoursome.

The taramasalata was enriched with their heady aroma and provided a quiet introduction of these extraordinary creatures to the menu.

I wonder if I have the courage to put them on just as pictured with an accompaniment of a good pastis?

Or would I get too many shy and frightened guests?

We had a very special celebration for a dear chap in the private room who was turning 100. his daughter requested truffles and we began the lunch with scrambled eggs and onions en cocotte laced with far too much truffle. Perfect start to a long lunch. We were too busy to capture the dish on camera but we did get a shot of the special cassoulet that we are serving again this Sunday as Mademoiselle has been very clever with over 1.3kg just from one tree.

Before you think this is a viral marketing attack I have to remind you that I have no pecuniary interest in her smelly treasures other than trying to help them onto tables as soon as possible after she finds them. The dining room on Sunday was full of industry and it was a joy to surprise a few fellow cooks with a secret ingredient in the oxtail pictured in the previous post. This week we feature smoked fresh ricotta with young carrots and cauliflower. Celeriac is back again with horseradish and tongue.

A new Jamon from Preston.

The rhubarb has come good in the garden after the rain and this new tart with a bitter almond paste, poached quince and quince ice cream has hit the menu. We are slow cooking as many quinces with the residual heat of the wood oven as we can while they last.

Jackfruit are at their peak we are serving them with a saffron flavoured rice pudding and a ginger and lime ice cream. Needless to say ginger and limes are also peaking in quality right now.

I love winter frost and all. Without these winter frosts the fruit, the nut trees the truffles and the soil would be lost.

Its the un seasonal weather that really hurts.

We need a gentle flood here to feel safe for summer.

A Winter's Tail, Tongue and Cheek

2009-06-23T18:21:00.009+10:00

For a cook the produce of one’s own region is the most important resource that we have . What I love most about our local Victorian produce markets are the changes that can be found each week.
As the winter solstice is upon us, quinces are still around, chestnuts may still have a couple of weeks left. Perfect weather for a cheeky ox tail.
This is a dish for a cold winter’s lunch with the rain pounding on the roof and the fire raging.
You can do all the prep the day before while listening to the footy safe in the knowledge that you can celebrate/commiserate in peace with your guests the next day as all the hard work has already been done.
Oxtail is a dish that stirs the appetite when the temperature outside starts to drop. This dish takes away all the free flowing excess fat that oxtail has and allows you to enjoy the deep satisfying flavour without having to be polite while sucking on the bones. The celeriac and tongue starter and ox cheek completes the nose to tail experience.
This is just a sketch of a recipe, not as fine a sketch as the chestnuts above which is by Kijoshi Hasegawa from the 1930’s.
A Crepinette of Ox tail and Cheek with Parsnips, Chestnuts and Quinces
You will need the following, I trust you with the quantities...
Oxtail and Ox cheek Pig’s Caul [Crepinette]
Quinces, Parsnips Chestnuts [peeled or dried and soaked in water]
Carrots Onions Leeks Celery all cut into small dice about 1cm square, there is no need to be obsessive about the shape but they need to be roughly the same size.
Bay leaves, Orange zest, garlic, salt, pepper, chili, juniper berries.
Red Wine, Stock or water.
Day One The Prep.
In a heavy braising dish brown the oxtail, and ox cheeks, remove and discard the excess fat. Sauté the mirepoix with all the aromatics, deglaze the dish with the red wine add the meats and cover with stock so that there is 2 cm of liquid above the meats. Seal very tightly with foil and cook at about 150 C for about 3 hours. The kitchen will start to smell wonderful at about the end of the first quarter
Check to see how the liquid is holding up at three quarter time
When ready cool and remove the meat from the oxtail bones gently and set aside. Cut off all the excess fat and loose trim from the ox cheek and cut into 4cm squares and set aside.
Strain the liquid from the vegetables.
Cool slightly and make up a parcel about the size of a billiard ball by placing a piece of caul over a small cup or bowl and add some tail meat, then some seasoned cooked vegetables and finally make a base layer from the cooked ox cheek. Neatly complete the parcel with the caul and set aside in the fridge till the next day.
To serve
After chilling overnight the stock will have a layer of hard fat on the top
You can discard this or use it to cook some potatoes to go with the dish.
Cook the chestnuts, parsnips and a small dice of the quinces in the now de-greased stock, taste and season. The quinces will have added some lovely tart notes to the sauce and the chestnuts will have balanced this with some sweetness.
Heat the oxtail parcels in a hot 180 C oven and serve with the sauce and some roasted or mashed potatoes.

Celeriac is also in season, at Sunnybrae we are serving this light dish as a starter to the oxtail.
Its a celeriac remoulade with ox tongue wrapped in a slice of air dried ham with a garnish of mustard greens that give a wasabi like kick that perfectly balances the savoury flavours of the tongue.

Tasmanian Winter Cherries?

2009-06-18T20:33:00.007+10:00

My morning hunting and gathering foray at Footscray market [that's Melbourne Jeremy] today revealed a very curious un/seasonal treat.

These very fine looking? cherries at a quite reasonable price? packed in cute dinky boxes labeled

Fresh Tasmanian Cherries Class 1 Grown and Packed by Tas Valley Orchards?The very helpful sales people reassured me that they were from "America" and so are very good indeed.

Now I'm used to fake Prada and fake Nike but Californian cherries masquerading as Tasmanian?

Does anybody know if Tas Valley Orchards is real and someone has just got the boxes and re packaged them or if the boxes are fakes? Or has Tas Valley worked out a way of storing cherries till winter?

Steve are you involved in this Cygnet conspiracy?

Tas Valley seems to originate at Cygnet?

....

Mademoiselle from Wongara Manger vous?

2009-06-13T09:55:00.015+10:00

Mademoiselle would like to invite any lovers of the stinking tuber [Melanosporum] to ring her human agents Heather and Bruce Ride if they would like to taste any of the this years crop of black Perigord truffle on zerothree52370232 no time wasters please.

For the back story of Mademoiselle's adventures click this link http://www.scribd.com/doc/4227182/Otway-Truffle

On the matter of this so called swine flu mademoiselle would like to quote John Elliot ... pigs arse its all human!

merci

Through a Glass Lightly

2009-06-11T20:02:00.016+10:00

The Japanese eye has a very different perspective.

I wont bore you with the travelogue, the people, the food, the gardens, the markets, the bookshops, the hospitality and the rest.

Just wondering why it had taken us so long to get there?

The coffee set is from Jutta Sika from 1901, the plate is from Bernard Leach and the vase is from Jean Dunand it is made of bronze. From an exhibition of how the West took to Japanese design at the turn of the 20th century.

Kappabashi street gives a cutting edge and new meaning to a vertical tea tasting.

Tokyo nightspots ooze charm.

Local transmition will resume as soon as possible.

Thank you Japan our eyes have been re-calibrated.

翻訳で失われる

2009-06-01T20:51:00.023+10:00

When travelling by train a
Geisha always takes the Nozomi

When choosing a 78 player, always choose a timber horn over a metal or even paper mache one.

At a multiplex you can have a tofu wasabi and rice cream made in a Japanese Pacojet

The best coffee in Kyoto is served in fine porcelain Noritake.

By Australian standards Japanese food importation laws are irresponsible.

The pink salt in watermelon and salt Kit Kats is from the Himalayas

In the land of many many pickles onions are exotic.

To relocate the Tsukiji Fish market to polluted ground over the river may be a drastic mistake.

Double click the photos for the big picture.

Thank you Wilma for holding the bookings line all is operational from the weekend.... no there won't be any sashimi of fugu this week.

A Sense of Place

2009-05-14T21:58:00.011+10:00

We are going on a short break.

Normal transmission will resume at the beginning of June....

Something for while we are off the air. I wrote it in 2006 not knowing that we would be re-opening the restaurant two years later. It encapsulates much of what I believe tourism should be about... clearly a sense of place.

Why do Fish and chips taste better by the beach?

Some dream of a long drive with the kids in the bush.
To stop at the an unexplored country pub, stumble on a counter lunch menu offering a piece of rump grilled over real coals a bottle of local red [perhaps with a bit of age as the publican owns a piece of the vineyard] and some smelly cheese.
Fresh garden veggies for the children with those chips?

Others may long for a country breakfast in that lodge overlooking the lake with oven fresh bread and real eggs. Perhaps some tree-changed renegade foodie has even supplied a Seville marmalade.

For the traveller who loves to taste, the whole day begins to hold a new promise.

This project is about the annual conference retreat.

You know the one where as catering organiser last year you rang the local Chinese take-away to smuggle in sustenance as the pesto prawns were well past it.
The email arrives, tells you that the catering company has changed and would like to know your food preferences.
You reply, they reply. They have the pinot, yes the lamb is local, and yes the key-note speaker can have Kosher.
You wake up.

This is about a coffee lounge. The Gaggia gleams, the barista delivers in spades as she tells you about the new roaster she’s just invested in.
You blink; turn off the highway its still 24 hrs from Tulla.

This project is also for the cook. He is writing his menu overlooking the ocean watching the ships in the distance; it is 6.30pm the fish has still not arrived. The first booking is for 7.15pm

He is beginning to channel the great Vatel.

For the complete document click here

http://www.scribd.com/doc/929252/A-Sense-of-Place

Paul Levy's Escoffiergate Top 100 and our First Re- Anniversary....

2009-05-04T17:03:00.010+10:00

Paul Levy wrote a piece in his Guardian Word of Mouth blog a short while ago about August Escoffier [he and Ritz’ feet of clay]

LINK HERE. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/mar/07/gordon-ramsay-egon-ronay-ritz-escoffier.

I remember reading about this in the eighties when Paul broke the news that the then most famous chef in history, along with his co-conspirator, the then greatest hotelier in history, had been busted for ripping off the Savoy Hotel and were both sacked in disgrace. As a young chef at the time I was shocked and it has given me a very skeptical view of celebrity ever since.

I found a first edition of his Guide Culinaire in an antique shop in Hamilton about the same time that the scandal broke and have treasured it especially his long and glorious essay on stock.

The Guardian article now prompted a question that you may be able to help me with?

I have been asked to write on the following.
Who do you think could be included in the 100 most important cooks that have “changed the world”?
Careme, Soyer, Bocuse, Beeton, David .......the westerners are possibly easy.
Any help with Asia or ones that may not seem so upfront? Does Ramsay etc qualify if/so/or not why? If it was a list of food writers Paul Levy would definitely be near the top of the moderns of my list.

PS
We have been re-opened for a year this weekend.
Big thanks to all for making it happen again.... as they say you know who you are.

Class Action

2009-04-28T12:26:00.009+10:00

Some are still confused about what happens at a cooking class here at Sunnybrae.
It’s a well known principle that what happens in class stays in class. So I can’t tell you the best bits like the the request for a blow [torch] job for the rice pudding or Daniel’s Monkey Mia joke and such but here’s a few clues. Don’t worry we also cook with some focus.
We have fun, learn a few things, muck up a bit and always sit down to a memorable lunch that has brought out some wonderful stories from our guests. I always learn some great tips, culinary trivia and special techniques from our visitors. And hopefully they receive the same.
Over the yearsI have given and been to many classes. With this new format I wanted to create an atmosphere of camaraderie, a discovery of some unusual special seasonal ingredients, use some less familiar meats and seafood, but most importantly breakdown the barriers that can hold back learning. We do this by treating the class exactly how it is; that is, cooking a special seasonal multicourse lunch to be ready by 1.30. I teach the principles that lead to an understanding of why a dish works rather than looking at a strict recipe and show practical ways of co-ordinating the timing to keep stress levels at a minimum. Home cooks and professionals for that matter are often at a loss to work out how to time the preparation and plating.
We begin with a coffee and short discussion that starts to build a group dynamic and by the end of the class many new friends are made. Cooking together does that. A skilled surgeon working with a grandmother, while her granddaughter works with a retired policeman. There are no barriers in the kitchen you need a good sense of humor, and take a bit of guidance. The ability to tell a good yarn is as good as a perfect brioche. We try to get to the finer details of bread, stocks, where to get stuff all the while keeping the time in perspective while double peeling the chestnuts and shaping the bread.
The when, how much, what to bring and so on can be found on the right sidebar. Its every Monday but we are going for a short break so the next available classes are from June 8 which is the Queen’s Birthday weekend.

And then there’s the Sex Kitten Salon but that’s another story.

Dolcetti a Sicillian Sweetheart

2009-04-16T18:06:00.011+10:00

There is a new star on Victoria Street!

Dolcetti the new pasticeria by Marianna Di Bartolo.
Many will know of Marianna’s delicious Sicilian pastries from her previous bakery in Brunswick but this is the realisation of a dream. Located in a shopfront at 223 Victoria Street West Melbourne, 2 doors down from Don Camillo [best original intact 50’s cafe in Melbourne] is must-do pilgrimage for pastry lovers. Superb hand made delicacies, to die for bombolini, exquisite panna cotta pastries with vanilla wicks,

nougat to dream about, tiny jewels of pastry in a reincarnation of the site of a 1960’s original cake shop. While doing the renovations she found the original terrazzo floor made up of samples of left over tiles indicating a frugal but stylish original owner. The tiles extend all the way into the kitchen. But its not the tiles but the sweets that cast a very bright light... wow!

Market to Market

2009-04-09T20:46:00.009+10:00

Markets are a joy to cooks; they are a shortcut to the soul of a city. No glossy brochure or guidebook can bring a visitor so close to the heartbeat of a new destination. There is an innate simplicity to traders selling their wares side by side or on the street without the paraphernalia of corporate image to hype up a sale. Caveat Emptor-- at a market what you see is really what you get.
I have to confess that when travelling the first cab off the rank is usually taking me to a wet market at midnight or the fish market under the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn. Is it still there?
We are off to Japan in late May and I can hardly wait to see the way that the Japanese markets work.

I visit Victoria market and Footscray each week to supplement all the local seasonal specialities. I need the accents and counterpoints to complement the local and seasonal as well as what our dry garden is providing. Not only is it a joy to go shopping but a market breakfast and lunch are a highlight of the week.
The new regime of Sat and Sunday lunches and a class on Monday makes this possible.
Diane and often take our weekends in Melbourne on Tues and Wed with a market crawl on the way back early on Thursday.
This morning the markets were full the glories of autumn. Pomegranates and persimmons radicchio Treviso kohlrabi. The first of the really good chestnuts. I also scored some good sweetbreads, big turkey livers, ripe fecund figs, soft bones of pork, goat shanks.
I can’t seem to write a menu without seeing the produce first.
Some windfall local grapefruit arrived earlier in the week as well as some samples of pure Wagyu that was finished on grass from a local grower, but I still can’t finalise the menu till Saturday morning when we know exactly what’s going to be here.
I honestly think this is what keeps me going, the challenge of balancing what the garden, the markets and the back door provide.
I can’t think of another city in Australia that provides so much choice.

Whats your favourite Market?

I’m not sure if it’s wise to let this out but we are on Skype [late adopter] at george.biron
Call me old fashioned but I won’t twitt.

Is it Aussie Ozzie? Oil! Oil! Oil!

2009-03-31T13:34:00.013+11:00

You may have already seen the first fresh olives in the market. It looks like an early season this year. One of the few crops to survive in our garden apart from the garlic and tomatoes have been the olives. Rather than a bumper crop, due to a spring hail storm it will be a modest olive yield but there is plenty of new growth that holds a promise for next year.
Philipe E Muskett in his 1893 volume The Art of Living in Australia talks about how the [then] newish colony had neglected to embrace the Mediterranean climate in all our early food choices and in that thesis reinforces how important olives are to a healthy and enjoyable food culture. He also gives us very good advice on fish, wine and use of indigenous game meats in his extraordinarily clear early vision of the future of food in this country. I was given this copy by Dr. John and Margaret Cone on the day Sunnybrae went into recess in 2000 it remains one of my favourite volumes.
I had been using Catalonian Arbequina oil for many years and developed a “cellar palate” for Arbequina. When the time came to select a variety to plant here, by sheer arse we picked a winner. We planted our tiny [100 trees] Arbequina Olive grove about 7 years ago. The trees are small so no ladders are needed, it crops annually [many other varieties are biennial] and the yield is high. But best of all the flavour is superb. The most common myth that many olive oil producers fall prey to: is to pick the olives when they are fully ripe. We pick when they are just turning from green through red to some black.
But how is olive oil made? It was quite a revelation when we had our first crop processed three years ago.
I thought that all oil was pressed. Indeed some still is, but pressing in the old traditional way has a few drawbacks. Olive oil is free oil in the juice of the olive but it has also some bitter water components that need to be separated as anyone who has tried to eat a fresh olive will never fail to remember.
The early methods were to crush the olives, make a paste, then knead the paste, to bring together the small oil droplets till they “pool.” This is called malaxing, and then to spread the paste onto mats in thin layers inside a press and apply light pressure. As the layers are pressed the fresh oil and bitter water needs to settle for quite a while to let the oil separate from the residues and bitter water.
The problem with this method is that the mats are very difficult to clean between batches and between seasons so some taint can creep in. Also it can take quite some time to load and reload the press resulting in some oxidation of the paste also giving less than perfect results. Also while the oil is settling that extra-ordinary out-of-body mind-blowing flavours that olive oil growers like to bang on about are lost.

We take our small crop to Camillo Olives in Teesdale link here http://www.camilo.com.au/ about a half an hour from Sunnybrae where they have a state of the art processing facility suited to very small crops. They grow the traditional Ligurian varieties for their own very fine oil.

The first two stages are the same as the old traditional methods in that the olives are washed, the leaves and stalks are separated and then they are crushed in a small hammermill that is cooled
The paste is then passed into another chamber where it is kneaded by a helix shaped paddle until the oil has pooled. The operator needs to understand when optimum malaxing has occurred. This is a fine call as over-malaxing can ruin the batch. With true extra virgin olive oil it’s not about getting the largest yield but the finest.
After malaxing comes the most visually exciting stage, the pooled paste is pumped gently into the next chamber and is spun at high speed. The first thing to escape is the crushed pips that fly out almost instantly as they are the lightest. Then the skilled operator using a small dial waits till the oil starts to emerge, then cranks it up slowly till a little of the bitter water begins to come through with the oil. He then lowers the speed back to when just glorious iridescent green oil starts to flow.
At this point a little bread is dipped and the flavour of this year’s oil is revealed. As with wine we have found each year to be quite different.
The whole process takes less than 2 hours and the oil never tastes better than on that day.
Over the next month the oil settles again and becomes clear but some of the life will have already gone from the oil. It will stay fresh for about 8 months if kept cool in the dark.
Too many producers are afraid to release really fresh oil, some even freeze it from year to year.