Winter Menu

Posted on August 14, 2010 by ben

Miso salmon; potato bake; fennel, apple and herb salad


Miso, soy sauce, mirin marinated salmon. Slivers of potato and butter stacked, baked and compressed. This dish did NOT work with a Fromm Vineyard Pinot Noir 2004, but perhaps that’s not a total reflect on the pairing, since the wine was pretty poor itself IMO.

Chinese pork belly; baked onion and beets, balsamic glaze, fennel; onion caramel Sherry sauce


A root veg theme. Onion blanched briefly before a quick pan-browning and then baking. Sauce was onion juice and caramel with some Sherry (beware the power of the fresh shallot, though).

Poached pear, ginger orange honey sauce


Red wine poached. Powdered vanilla sugar down one side, powdered black pepper down the other. Nice combo.

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Aussie Lamb

Posted on August 14, 2010 by ben

Australian beef doesn’t impress me at all: it just doesn’t have the depth of flavour. I used to think it must be the wide-spread short (or non existant) hanging time, but even Aussie beef that’s been hung for weeks doesn’t have the flavour. I thought maybe it was the old grass fed vs grian fed issue (but niether >30 day grain fed nor grass fed seems to offer the depth either – I think grass fed gives better flavour, for most places in the world, BTW)….

Aussie lamb, however, is great. It is slightly gamey even without hang time, but it’s not as funky as its European counterparts (which unfortunately, I find too funky – unusual for me, since I generally like game and funk).

I find Aussie lamb is best cooked to medium or medium+, which perhaps explains why Australian’s general understanding of “rare” is equivalent to what the Brits would call “medium” and what the French would call “well done”!

BBQed here, a la “Niçoise”, with what is essentially an undercooked ratatouille that has black Kalamata olives and plenty of thyme thrown through it. The combo is fantastic, and with a decent hit of vinegar in the sauce, a full red wine is a great partner.

Aussie lamb a la Niçoise

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Fish: Pike

Posted on August 7, 2010 by ben

Aussie-Asian fusion continues to hold my interest, and I like to combine citrus with fish…

Australian pike with mirepoix, choy, mandarin-soy-honey sauce, pomello


Not bad with a Rias Baixas either.

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Bolognese

Posted on August 7, 2010 by ben

A good bolognese starts with a good soffritto, and I’ve come to believe the classic use of milk is beneficial.

Soffritto

I prefer a 100% durum wheat Italian semolina (non-egg) pasta, but making egg pasta is fun anyway…

Drying egg pasta

Tagliatelle (the real! pasta for) bolognese

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Making the most of asparagus

Posted on August 7, 2010 by ben

Thinking like a chef who has to squeeze every last bit out of an ingredient to bring in the money has its advantages. The hard stemmy ends are souped and sauced back in spring…

Asparagus heads, sauce and soup

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Fish: Flathead

Posted on July 24, 2010 by ben

So what to do when there’s not much flavour in the fish you’re working with? Add flavour: BBQ and spice!

I am increasingly thinking this is an excellent treatment for warm water Australian fish with less flavour. (Flathead aren’t bad flavour-wise, but they’re not great either.) I also find that Asian preparations tend to work well.

The dish below is BBQed spiced flathead, with a spice mix including plenty of sumac (which gives a citrus lift that works with seafood), plus perhaps some cumin, coriander and black pepper. This is served with three salads: nashi pear with soy sauce and a light vinegar; orange, carrot, parsley and cumin (a great combo); and a French-dressed green leaf. It’s a nice summer dish.

BBQed spiced flathead with three salads

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Australian seafood

Posted on July 24, 2010 by ben

I’m not particularly impressed by the saltwater fish of New South Wales, Australia. They so often seriously lack flavour (and somehow they don’t seem to shine with so many classical seafood combinations). It may be the warm waters. The cooler climate fish like Tasmanian salmon can be very good (and particularly oily in winter) – though, IMO, no salmon can compare to wild Pacific salmon from the Pacific Northwest (not even Scottish). Given that so much of the fish eaten in Australian are saltwater species, the fresh water trout deserves a mention as I think its flavour can be particularly good.

The shellfish, however, are fantastic!

I prefer the Sydney rock oyster (Saccostrea glomerata) to the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas). Perhaps that makes sense, since the former are the native species. They seem to have a bit more of the “rock pool” flavour that many oyster lovers crave. Regardless, Australian grown oysters often have rich creamy texture relative to many European or N. American grown examples.

Sydney rock oysters

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Bread: the quest for the perfect pain de campagne

Posted on July 17, 2010 by ben

The classic wood fired pain de campagne is so good you find yourself eating it before you even get it home. It seems near non-existant outside French speaking countries, as hard as many try to attain the same qualities in their bread. In addition to the taste imparted by the culture (that invariably includes yeast and lactic acid bacteria) and (potentially) the wood-fired oven, the classic loaf has what I call a “spider’s web” structure to the crumb that I’ve found particularly hard to replicate: they have an open, “webbed” cumb with plenty of holes in it. This is the kind of bread with fantastic texture.

I’ve cultured wild sour doughs and varied salt content, proving times, kneading technique (the throw-the-dough-on-the-counter traditional French technique is best for this type of dough), tried different flour types… but I think, ultimately, it primarily comes down to having the right flour.

These kinds of loaves use flour that provide a gluten matrix that allows long extension without being too elastic (i.e., they don’t “stretch back” to their original shape). N. American and Australian flours tend to have high gluten (high protein) content and are too elastic for a successful loaf of this kind. Flours from these countries lend themselves well to highly aerated breads with a close and uniform texture but not the classic pain de campagne that is loose, open and full of holes. (British flours tends to be too weak (low in gluten) and are, besides, a hit and miss affair due to the climate (vintage variation).) French flour perhaps has the right combination. Without having access to French flour, I’ve explored blending flours: by combining strong white flour (high gluten content) with plain flour (weaker gluten) it is possible to obtain a balance that provides extensible dough that isn’t too elastic. This approach has been more successful, but I’ve yet to truly obtain the results I desire….

Nevertheless, even if it’s not quite there as a bread, a wild sour dough with a highly aerated tight crumb is fantastic toasted and slathered with butter.

Wild sour dough starter culture


No 'spider's web'-like structure, but this highly aerated, tight crumbed wild sour dough bread is great toasted

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Fruit (non-grape) wines and Chinese foods

Posted on July 10, 2010 by ben

A friend had been sampling my 2006 Gooseberry wine and recommended it with foods (like spicy Asian) that don’t usually work so well with grape wines. He had tried the ’06 Gooseberry with a spicy but not hot Szechuan chicken dish and found the combination “wonderful”.

I tried the same wine with Ma Poh Doufu, one of my favourite Szechuan dishes. I tend to make the dish without too much chilli (ginger and chilli wok-ed in oil before adding spring onions and pork mince; then some red bean sauce and chicken stock, and finally the silken tofu and toasted Szechuan peppercorns), and serve it with wheat noodles.

I was really quite surprised at how fantastic this combination was! To my taste, it was amongst some of the better food-wine matches I’ve ever had. There’s something about the salivation that Szechuan peppercorns induce (it must be due to the hydroxy-alpha-sanshool) that seems to work well with a juicy-fresh mineral non-grape wine.

Following that, I tried some of my Rhubarb wines with Szechuan chicken (generally: red bell pepper/capsicum, chicken, leek, garlic, ginger, black beans, soy sauce, rice wine, plenty of Szechuan peppercorns) and this was a great match too.

Forget Gewurtz, Riesling or whatever…. fruit wines are the way to go with spicy Asian cuisine!

The Gooseberry is made from a purple variety called Worcesterberry and I tend to make it pretty funky/earthy, with a touch of residual sugar but good acidity. The Rhubarbs tend to be dry, mineral, light-medium bodied whites.

Ma Poh Doufu with Passionvale Gooseberry 2006

Szechuan chicken with Passionvale Mayfield Rhubarb 'The Vegetal' 2007

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BY Menu, 26 February 2008

Posted on July 10, 2010 by ben

I composed this menu for pesco vegetarians.

Goat cheese and chive ravioli, tomato and basil vinaigrette
A classic flavour combo that just works so well. The “vinaigrette” is more like a light tomato based sauce with sharp acidity.

Goat cheese and chive ravioli, tomato and basil vinaigrette

Celeriac soup, beetroot and red wine emulsion
Rob Feenie’s combo concept-wise. It works pretty well.

Celeriac soup, beetroot and red wine emulsion

Lemon sole, Australian mountain pepper spice, carrot, parsley butter, garlic chips
Halibut, quatre épices rub, poached figs
Essentially two dishes in one, because I just love packing the flavour combos in.
Lemon sole remains a popular N. European fish, particularly in the UK. It’s a delicate fish with a great flavour, and it’s also cheaper than Dover Sole. It doesn’t (or “shouldn’t”) require much treatment, so here I served it with carrot in a parsley butter (coz carrot and parsley work well together, and parsley and butter work well with sole). The garlic crisp and mountain pepper were small touches to just provide some fun (the pepper is a native pepper berry from Tasmania that has quite a hot peppery flavour).
Halibut is amongst my favourite fish, quite unlike many fish due to its firm, almost meaty texture. This fish is great fried, and can take a bit of spice. The figs were essentially poached in port. These components worked surprisingly well together.

The above dishes were served with Bonneau du Martray‘s Corton-Charlemagne 2001. I not think this worked particularly well, but I am not a fan of BdM’s CC (the flavours just aren’t what I look for in white Burgundy) and I may also have been a little tired of it at the time too, since a friend had coincidentally served me blind a different vintage of the same wine a day or two prior. Perhaps I was biased because of this, though really I wouldn’t expect this wine to work with the above dishes particularly well anyway (this wine was opened for what it was, not for the match it might provide).

Lemon sole, Aussie mountain pepper spice, carrot, parsley butter, garlic chips; Halibut, quatre épices rub, poached figs

“Pepper, pita, feta”: stuffed peppers, feta sorbet, spiced fried pita
A wanted to play around with stuffed peppers. I tend to pack them with rice, herbs, tomato sauce and onion. I find they can work fantastically well with red wine if the acidity is kept high (add plenty of vinegar) and they contain Greek quantities of olive oil.

Paired with Château Lagrange St Julien 2003, with which it worked pretty well.

“Pepper, pita, feta”: stuffed peppers, feta sorbet, spiced fried pita

Roquefort cheese, poached pear, spiced toasted walnuts, sweet-wine-poaching reduction
I feel I’ve refined this composed cheese course dish pretty much to the point of perfection. The flavours just work so well together. The pear is poached in a syrup containing white wine and lemon juice, and the nuts are roasted with a little salt, cardamom, cinnamon (perhaps some black pepper or cumin).

I feel this dish pairs very well with a sweet Loire Chenin Blanc. In this case, IIRC, it was Baumard’s 1992 Quarts de Chaumes.

Roquefort cheese, poached pear, spiced toasted walnuts, sweet-wine-poaching reduction

Chocolate dèlice, salted caramel, peanut icecream
Evidently, presentation went a bit wayward.. the diners even joined me in the kitchen at the dish composition phase for some pretty funny cuts and constructions (not shown)… but it tasted pretty good if I do say so myself. Certainly a rich dessert.

Chocolate dèlice, salted caramel, peanut icecream

Posted in Beetroot, Cheese, Dessert, Fish, Icecream, Menu, Pasta, Soup, Uncategorized, Vegetarian/Vegan | Leave a comment