Rainbow trout, gnocchi, wilted baby spinach, roast garlic cream

Rainbow trout: baked en papillote with a little white wine, a treatment most suitable to trout IMO.
Roast garlic cream: fish stock, roast garlic, cream.

A simple but delicious combination, and paired well with the Tapanappa Tiers Chardonnay 2005. It is a good wine, even if perhaps a little pricey, with lifted fruit – honeydew melon skin, baked lemon, and a hint of pink grapefruit and musky-wood. The palate is well balanced, showing acidity that doesn’t dominate, with suitable medium weight, and a reasonably long finish of butter, cream and a kind of nut kernel character. The oak is well pitched, being noticeable yet well integrated.
This isn’t a modern styled Aussie Chard – it isn’t high in acidity, insipid in character, or oak dominant – but rather more like a combination of the old and the new style that meet in the middle ground that I think is most suitable for Aussie Chard: fruit that’s edging on tropical but not pushed too far that way, present acidity that’s not too sharp (and full malo/MLF), some pleasant malo- and sur lie-derived character, and obvious yet well integrated oak. It’s actually one of the best Aussie Chard’s I’ve had for quite a while.

Peppered beef ribeye (Scotch fillet), roast radish, parsnip cream, jus

Beef: What to do with flavourless Australian ribeye (called Scotch fillet in Australia and New Zealand)? Pepper the flavour into it. Finished in the oven.
Radish: European radish and (freshly plucked from the ground) daikon/Japanese radish, roasted in a little butter and olive oil. The European radishes paired better than the daikon… perhaps unsurprisingly.
The parsnip cream offered a nice sweet and cooling contrast to the heat of the pepper and the radish.

Scallops, cauliflower purée, Sherry-butter foam

Scallops: pan fried Tasmanian.
Purée: Cauliflower florets poached in milk and cream, then puréed and seasoned (white pepper, sea salt).
Sherry-butter foam: PX and Manzanilla Sherries, chicken stock, butter, a little thyme and lecithin.

It’s hard to beat the classics: scallops and cauliflower. When it comes to haute cuisine prep for cauliflower, a milk-cream purée has got to be amongst the best, if not the best. The foam adds some contrast in flavour, and works surprisingly well (though I have always been a fan of the scallop-Sherry fusion, and I think chicken is the best meat for scallop too).

Sea perch, parsnip purée, leek, parsley-lemon-butter sauce

Sea perch: pan fried Tasmanian. There are so many “sea perch” species on the Australian eastern seaboard that the term is a bit meaningless (like so many other common fish names), but essentially all the commercial species (of the genus Lutjanus) are delicate flavoured firm and flaky, white fleshed saltwater (estuarine) fish with low oil content.
Purée: as above, with parsnip in place of cauliflower.
Leek: blanched.
Sauce: sweated shallot, deglazed with Chardonnay and reduced; butter, parsley and lemon juice.

A combination on a hunch and whim, but it works very well (better than the scallop dish). The sweetness of the parnsip works well with the sauce, the leek flavours blend seamlessly, the lemon gives a little acidity to contrast the purée’s creaminess and sweetness, and all these flavours work with the sea perch. I will have to return to these flavour combos.

A Claude Cazals Champagne Cuvée Vive Grand Cru NV had a very fine bead, gentle aromas of flowers (heather) and chalk, and a lovely, well balanced, silky-textured palate with good progression. It did not clash with the above dishes, but niether the dishes nor the wine raised the sensations of each other. Then again, this Champagne was not so friendly with oysters either, so perhaps something altogether different would be best with it.

I find the best way to make it is the classic French way:

Lightly dust the beef in flour and brown in a hot pan before removing. Saute the aromatics (I like onion, carrot, celery, leek) in the same pan and remove. Deglaze with a little tomato paste (added umami and Maillard) and wine. Reduce by 1/2. Then place all ingredients in a covered (foiled or lidded) roasting tray/tin/pan with garlic, thyme and bay and cover with chicken (and beef) stock. Braise in the oven for between 3 and 5 hours at about 130°C/266°F. (I find roasting provides a lower, more controlled heat source than a hob.) The meat should be moist and fall off the bone when done. The meat can then be picked through and shaped in moulds (if desired) before chilling to retain shape and allow the flavours to marry.

Then the braising liquid can be strained and reduced. I find it can be helpful to chill the strained liquid first (or reduce by 1/2, then chill), remove the fat and sediment, then strain through muslin before the final reduction. Reduce to a thick glaze and add either a little pre-reduce Sherry or brandy, or a little Sherry vinegar.

The below is served with wilted spinach and a parsnip mash (boiled parsnips, mashed and pushed through a strainer, with seasoning and possibly some milk/cream/butter mixed in).

Braised shin of beef, wilted spinach, mashed parsnip, jus