Do you remember how exciting it used to be to collect stamps in your passport? It was always fun to flick through and see all the stamps from different countries. But passports these days aren’t the same – not as many stamps are used with the new style passports that contain electronic chips. Also, rather annoyingly (at least for NZ passports) they’re only valid for five years, not ten. And doesn’t five years go by incredibly fast?

Recently my passport was due to expire and I needed to sort out a renewal. I had to get a reference for my renewal application, so off we went to visit Dany. While we were visiting, I saw that she had a copy of Indochine – a recent birthday present from her workmates.

I had a quick flick through – it’s a beautiful book and the photos are stunning. I was particularly taken with the recipe for a pandan and ginger panna cotta. So taken that I decided to make it that day. So I did!

I adapted the recipe a bit – mostly just by using coconut milk instead of cream. It was pretty easy to make – the hardest thing was grating the ginger and infusing the milk with pandan leaves. Using pandan extract instead of leaves would speed up the process considerably.

The resulting panna cotta was *quite* gingery and you know what? I like pandan but sometimes it makes me think of old socks. :p So I’m not raving about this panna cotta – possibly taking out one flavour element would make it better. I thought that pandan, ginger and coconut would be great together and, well, I won’t say I was wrong, but I wasn’t as excited by it as I thought I would be. It was possibly just a bit too gingery for my liking (and generally I like gingery things). I also think it could use a little less gelatine.

So while I didn’t love it, I’m blogging it anyway – since I already took the photos (hah!). And it could just be that it wasn’t to my taste: others may love it. If you make it, please let me know your verdict.

Pandan and ginger panna cotta

Adapted from Indochine

Serves 6

2 tablespoons boiling water
3 teaspoons gelatine powder
250ml milk
5 pandan leaves, roughly chopped (or you could substitute with pandan extract – maybe a teaspoon? or less?)
60g ginger, peeled and grated
110g sugar
500ml cream (or use coconut milk like I did)

Put the boiling water in a bowl and sprinkle over the gelatine. Stir it in and set aside.

Blend the milk with the pandan leaves in a food processor. Place the milk mixture in a saucepan with the ginger and heat until almost boiling. Remove from the heat and set aside for 15 minutes so the flavours can infuse.

Strain the mixture into a clean pan, getting as much of the liquid from the leaves and ginger as possible.

Put the pan on the heat. Add the sugar and softened gelatine. Stir and bring the mixture up to the boil so the gelatine completely dissolves. Take it off the heat and whisk in the cream (or coconut milk if using).

Strain the mixture into siz 150ml cups and refrigerate for 3 hours, or until completely set.

Serve in the cups or turn out, if preferred.

Related posts:

1. Mango jelly and coconut panna cotta
2. Dinner at ours: Twice baked cheese soufflé, spinach stuffed chicken roulade and coconut panna cotta
3. Braised pork with star anise and ginger

Hmm, after looking at my Instagram photos this week, I realised that I hardly posted anything. I was sick, and work was busy, and all I wanted to do was stay in bed. Wah! Oh well. This post will be short and sweet then.

Oh, I’ll be emailing the Better Homes & Gardens winners tomorrow.

I’ve been doing February photo a day on Instagram (basically there’s a different theme each day). I’m going to post a round up at the end of this month, but I particularly loved this one. The theme for this photo was “time”… that’s right: stop! Hammer time! (SUCH a dork.)

On Thursday night, Alastair and I went into the city for dinner at Campari House with Haz and her man (disclosure: it was a freebie). We’ve had some good food at Campari House before, but that night was a bit mixed. We had some delicious panko prawns, my main was a pretty good veal dish, and the lemon tart we shared for dessert was very nice. Unfortunately, Alastair had porterhouse for his main and while he requested medium-rare, it was waaaaaaaaaaaay past medium and almost in the well done stage.

For previous posts on Campari House see a quick mention before Christmas, a cider event, and a MFWF event.

On Saturday Thanh hosted a deep fried party. Yes, we rocked up at his house and ate a lunch that consisted of deep fried food. IT WAS AWESOME. I made the fantastically delicious AGFC (Azza Gazza fried chicken – see post here!), Thanh made lobak, I-Hua made deep fried mushrooms, and Kat made a salad and chicken wings. Thanh’s mum also made us a delicious salad, and there was a magnum of wine courtesy of April and her husband.

I haven’t posted photos of the food because… it was all brown. Funnily enough, all deep fried food comes out brown. Not that attractive, really. :p Despite the brownness, it was a super delicious lunch.

Oh yeah there was dessert too. We had Thanh’s brownies, Kat’s bread and butter pudding, and I deep fried some crispedi.

Deep fried parties / brown food parties rock.

The rest of our weekend was very chilled out. This was breakfast today: coffee, scrambled eggs, avocado and fresh tomato. Nutritious and delicious.

PS: next week will be more exciting, I promise.

Related posts:

1. The week in brief

What’s the best way of taking ice cream to a picnic? One option is to load up an esky (chilly bin) with ice and hope for the best. OR you could get a bit inventive – and make ice cream cone cupcakes.

Okay, so it’s not technically ice cream, but look at how cute they are!

I’d seen this idea on blogs before, and a recent Australia Day picnic was the perfect excuse to try them out. If you haven’t seen these before, the cupcakes are baked in the ice cream cones (no they don’t burn) before being topped with frosting so they look like ice creams. So. Cute.

I made a chocolate mud cupcake with a vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. I decided against a normal buttercream because I wanted a frosting that wasn’t quite as heavy, considering there needed to be a fair amount to make them look right. I then put on some colourful sprinkles and a little chocolate bar to further the ice cream look.

A couple of notes about the cupcakes. This particular cupcake mixture rises a lot so don’t fill the cones to much more than 50%. It also makes a lot of cupcakes. I managed to fill 24 little cones and still had a bit of batter leftover. Don’t be tempted to top up the cones with the leftover batter though – remember what I said about it rising a lot!

But if you don’t like chocolate, you could of course use any cupcake recipe that you wanted. The recipe I used is a very nice one though. Moist and chocolately – no awful dry cupcakes here.

Now about the Swiss meringue buttercream. It’s a bit more effort than normal buttercream, but I think it’s worth it – you end up with a fluffy, smooth frosting that’s not insanely sweet. SMB is made by heating egg whites and sugar together, and then whipping it into a meringue before adding butter and flavouring. It’s very similar to an Italian meringue buttercream – just a slightly different method.

A stand mixer is required and a candy thermometer would also help. The recipe below gave me exactly enough to top 24 cupcake cones, and if you have a look at it – yes, the butter amount is correct. There is rather a lot of butter. The frosting was delicious, but it really was quite buttery. Next time I make SMB, I’m going to try using less butter – I reckon about 3/4 of the butter would be perfect. But since I haven’t tested it I’ve left the full quantity in the recipe. Less butter or not, I think I have a new favourite frosting.

Ice cream cone cupcakes

Adapted from The Crabapple Bakery cupcake book

Makes 24 cupcake cones

(Remember you can use any cupcake recipe. This is a chocolate mud cupcake recipe.)

24 flat bottomed cupcake cones
1.5 tablespoons instant coffee
100ml water
125g butter
150g dark chocolate
2 eggs
45ml oil
70ml buttermilk
130g plain flour
pinch of salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarb soda
300 caster sugar
30g cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 160°C. Set out 24 flat bottomed cupcake cones.

Dissolve the coffee in hot water in a heat proof bowl. Add the butter and dark chocolate and place over a large saucepan of simmering water.

Stir until the chocolate has melted. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil and buttermilk until combined.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, bicarb soda, caster sugar and cocoa powder and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre and pour in the egg mixture.

Mix with a wooden spoon until well combined and add the cooled chocolate mixture. Mix carefully until thoroughly combined.

Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cones – only filling to just over half full as this mixture rises a lot.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Set aside and allow to cool completely before frosting.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Adapted from Martha Stewart

Enough for 24 ice cream cone cupcakes

280g caster sugar
5 large egg whites
450g unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Place the sugar and egg whites in the heat proof bowl of an electric mixer. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture comes up to 60°C on a thermometer. It should take 3-5 minutes.

Transfer the bowl to the mixer stand. Using the whisk attachment, beat on high speed until the mixture is completely cool and has formed stiff and glossy peaks. This will take aout 10 minutes. (Side note: you have meringue at this stage – you can eat it or top cakes/cupcakes with it if desired.)

Switch to the flat paddle beater. On low speed, add cubes of butter one at a time until it’s all incorporated. If it curdles, just keep beating – it should become smooth again. When all the butter is added, add the vanilla and beat until just combined.

Pipe on top of cupcakes and decorate with sprinkles.

(Once piped, it’s best eaten on the same day. Unpiped, the frosting can be kept in an airtight container in the fridge for up to one week – when ready to use, let it come up to room temperature and rewhip in mixer for 5 minutes. It can also be frozen for 6-8 weeks. Let it thaw completely, then rewhip for 5 minutes in the mixer before using.)

Related posts:

1. Lemon and blueberry cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing
2. Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with chocolate whisky ganache and Baileys buttercream
3. Jammy cupcakes

There’s an inner glutton in me. She is mostly tamed and kept deep down inside, but occasionally she rises to the surface. Normally she comes out in the presence of other gluttons ie Ms Kat. However, I discovered the other night that my glutton is only a glutton in training in comparison to Kat.

Kat wanted to go to Chinese Spicy and Barbie Kitchen to eat Sichuan food and “shit on sticks” (my terminology – translation: meat/vegies on skewers). Since it’s my side of town, I was keen and we gathered up Thanh, Kat’s partner Josh, Alastair and Bro for a visit one night last week.

When we arrived, we were disappointed to see that the menu had changed. No more stick food. Still, we were there already so we soldiered on and flicked through the very helpful photo menu, ending up with eight dishes between the six of us. We thought that was going to be too much food, but an attempt to cull dishes was unsuccessful:

“Okay, shall we cull the squid?”

“Awww, no!”

“Well what about the tongue?”

“Nooooooo.”

“Ah, then how about the onion balls?”

“Oh, I really want the onion balls…”

We just ordered all eight dishes. Far better to overeat than have to cut down our choices (oh look, there’s my glutton talking).

First out was a plate of pan fried pork dumplings ($4.80 for 6 dumplings). I quite enjoyed these – they weren’t mind-blowing but they were tasty. The dumplings had a relatively thin skin, crisp bottoms, and a juicy pork filling.

Next was the dish that I personally really wanted: sliced beef tongue and tripe with chilli sauce ($9.80). Served cold, this was SO GOOD and I’m really glad I didn’t let anyone cull it. The texture confused us a bit, as it didn’t seem like any tongue that any of us had ever eaten, and we couldn’t find any tripe, but whatever. It was delicious. The thinly sliced tongue had a slightly chewy texture like almost dried beef jerky, and it was coated in a spicy, garlicy sauce with a hint of Sichuan pepper. Delicious, delicious, delicious.

The deep fried onion balls ($14.80) was a dish that we almost cut twice. But when it arrived, we were all glad that it made the cut. The small balls had a mild sweet onion flavour and were possibly made of tofu – they had a nice light texture. Plus there was almost a mountain of them. The only point against them was the sweet chilli sauce they were served with, but they were definitely worth ordering.

Thanh’s choice was the deep fried lamb spare ribs with homemade sauce ($18.80). He knows how to pick them because this was the dish of the night. The tender and fatty ribs were coated in a sticky, sweetish sauce that had a touch of cumin, but best of all they had a slightly crisp crust from being deep fried. So. Good. Next time, we definitely need to order two serves.

Because we needed some vegetables, we also had dry beans with chilli and pork mince ($13.80). I love this dish, and this was a good version. The beans were tender and nicely wrinkled, and the flavours were well balanced. At some restaurants they make it too salty, but this was just right.

The deep fried chicken with chilli and pepper ($17.80) is one dish that I swore never to order again. But others wanted it, and they let me have my tongue dish, so it stayed on our list. And… hate to say it – but this didn’t make me like it any more. There’s no value in it – look at all the chilli (which are basically inedible, though Kat had a good time trying) and there was very little chicken. What chicken there was in the dish, were very small pieces, all with very sharp shards of bone.

Alastair’s choice was the deep fried squid with salt and pepper ($18.80). It was okay – a touch oily – but the thick batter was nicely crisp. Still, it took up valuable stomach space from all the other deliciousness and could’ve come from any fish and chip shop.

And finally, we had a plate of spicy eggplant ($12.80). The eggplant had been sliced into batons and I’m assuming deep fried in a light batter and then coated in a sweet, sticky sauce. The inside ends up meltingly soft, and there’s a bit of caramelised sweet crispness to the outside. If you go, you should definitely order this. It wasn’t at all spicy though, so it is perhaps misnamed. If I named this dish, I would call it: sweet crisp tender eggplant.

After all that food we weren’t hungry any more, but the thought of deep fried ice cream ($3.80) was too much to resist. And holy moly it was fantastic. The balls of ice cream were massive, and coated in a sweet caramel sauce, but the coating wasn’t a normal batter. It was like the ice cream was in a cakey/donut coating, and had perhaps been dipped in bread crumbs before frying. Amazing. Alastair and I shared one, and after we were about three quarters of the way through, my inner glutton started screaming at me: STOP. STOP EATING. RIGHT NOW.

I put my spoon down and let Alastair polish off the rest. Delicious as it was, if my glutton was saying stop, it really means stop. While I was so full I could barely move, Kat insisted she could eat another plate of the lamb ribs.

We all really enjoyed the meal at Chinese Spicy and Barbie Kitchen. Since it serves Sichuan food, the inevitable comparison must be made with Dainty Sichuan. And my verdict – despite the unwieldy name, I think Chinese Spicy and Barbie Kitchen is better than Dainty. The food wasn’t as oily and salty, and the restaurant itself is small and clean and much more comfortable. Prices are also quite a bit cheaper. But the biggest bonus (for me): it’s on my side of town.

We’ll definitely be back as there’s more on the menu that I wanted but couldn’t fit in: e.g. smoked pork hock – next time, you will be mine!

For more on Chinese Spicy and Barbie Kitchen, see these blogs:

Chinese Spicy and Barbie Kitchen
311 Racecourse Road
Flemington / Kensington
Phone: 9372 5218

Related posts:

1. Spicy eggplant and garlic shoots
2. Hong Kong BBQ & Seafood Chinese Restaurant
3. Collins Kitchen, Grand Hyatt: food bloggers dinner

This week: there’s not that much to see here. Apologies! Hey, have you entered my Better Homes and Gardens competition?

At the beginning of the week I cooked another whole chicken in the pressure cooker for dinner. I know I’ve said this before, but I need to say it again: I LOVE MY PRESSURE COOKER. The chicken cooks in thirty minutes and comes out very juicy and tender, though the downside is a lack of crispy skin. I shove a lemon, onion and garlic cloves into the chook to give it some flavour and rub a fair amount of salt on and inside it. It’s really good, so I don’t miss crisp skin. My new favourite way to cook a whole chicken.

On another evening we went to dinner at Chinese Spicy and Barbie Kitchen with Thanh and Kat. We ate so much food, this was only half of it.

And we finished off with deep fried ice cream, which was INCREDIBLE. My post on Chinese Spicy and Barbie Kitchen is coming up next week.

For lunch at work this week, I mostly had salads (like most weeks, really). This one was particularly massive – tons of baby spinach and finely shredded cabbage, along with a baby avocado, tomatoes from my garden (yay!), pepitas and tuna. I eat my salads out of a bowl that’s as big as my head because I like to eat a lot of greens – you can never have too much in my opinion.

On Friday night we went out for dinner and karaoke for Bro’s gf’s birthday. Dinner was fine and karaoke was awesome, but I managed to catch a cold.

So the rest of my weekend has pretty much been spent on the couch, napping, reading, and drinking tea out of my silly cat cup.

Since I had a fairly uneventful week, please share yours. I’m sure it was more exciting than mine!

Related posts:

1. The week in brief
2. The week in brief

Long time readers will know this about me: my gardening skills suck. Need evidence of exactly how terrible a gardener I am? I once tried to grow cat grass and was unsuccessful. GRASS, folks. I couldn’t grow GRASS.

I keep trying though, because I live in hope that one day I will have a wonderful, lush, green garden to go with my effortlessly stylish, clean house.

Yes, I’ll keep dreaming.

If you’re an aspiring gardener/decorator like me, or perhaps more of a super DIY king/queen, how about attending the Better Homes and Gardens Live event? It’s being held from 24-26 February at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton, and I have several double passes to give away.

The live event will bring to life ideas from the magazine, with live stage shows, workshops and products to try, with over 250 exhibitors. The hosts from TV will be there too doing live demos – Graham Ross, Tara Dennis, ‘Fast’ Ed, Karen Martini, Jason Hodges, Rob Palmer and Johanna Griggs – check out the stage timetable to find out when they’re on.

The competition details:

I have ten double passes to Better Homes and Gardens Live to give away. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post and I’ll draw the winners randomly. Make sure you include a valid email address when you comment. It won’t be published, I’ll just use it to contact you if you’re a winner. Entries close midnight Saturday 18 February and I’ll announce the winners the following day.

For more info, check out bhglive.com.au and good luck!

Thanks to Better Homes & Gardens and Single Marketing Events for providing the tickets. All images are courtesy of BHG.

Better Homes & Gardens Live
24-26 February 2012
Royal Exhibition Building
Carlton
bhglive.com.au

No related posts.

Disclosure: We dined with Thanh, who is friends with the staff at Steer. The Chef put together a tasting menu for us. So – special treatment alert. However, we did pay for our meal.

This post is for all the beef lovers out there.

Steer opened just over a year ago, starting off as a steakhouse with a Brazilian influence. Since then, it has evolved into a New York steakhouse, obviously still with a focus on beef. Just after Christmas, Alastair and I had dinner there with Thanh, Michele, April and her hubby. With all our stomachs stretched from Chrissy, we were ready to eat ourselves some meat!

And we were certainly at the right place. At Steer, they are so serious about their meat that a large wooden board is brought out to each table, showcasing the cuts available.

But before we got into the steaks, we started with a selection of appetisers.

The first of the appetisers we had were fried zucchini flowers with buffalo ricotta and basil sauce. Starting off with a bang – this was my favourite appetiser of the night. The flowers were in a very light and crispy batter and were so crunchy.

Then there were scallops served on top of confit pork, parsley, samphire and Worcestershire veloute. They were a touch too salty, which was a shame because scallops AND pork… ohmy…

I also really enjoyed the slow cooked octopus with smokey rosemary and confit tomato. The itty bitty octopus pieces were nicely tender.

The crisp calamari with roast corn and jalapeno aioli was another favourite of mine – the calamari had a touch of cumin in the batter and when we dug further into the dish, we found some tomatoey pork belly. Win.

But wait, there’s more. The salmon gravlax with crème fraiche and rye crisps was served warm, with the fish being very soft and creamy.

Also served warm was a duck egg with Iberico de Bellota, almond, sofrito.

The egg must’ve been slow cooked, because it was all deliciously gooey inside.

Then we moved on to mains – which was (of course) steak.

The steak menu is large and kind of overwhelming. Fortunately, Chef sent out four steaks for us to try so we didn’t have to make a decision.

First we had two waygu steaks. One was the David Blackmore waygu hanger – this has a beef marbling score of 9+ (ie really fricken high) and a flavour intensity of 8. This is grain fed.

We also had a Moondarra full blood tajima waygu oyster blade – this cow is pasture (grass) fed and has a marbling score of 5 and flavour intensity of 9.

The hanger steak was incredibly tender – very rich, and melt in the mouth, and almost creamy.

The oyster blade was also tender, though not as much as the hanger steak. It definitely had a slightly stronger flavour.

If I had to choose between the two, I preferred the oyster blade. It still had a great texture but had more flavour.

(And just an aside – we didn’t refer back to the menu to see the marbling and flavour intensity scores when eating the steaks. It was interesting that we could definitely pick the differences between the two wagyus.)

We then had two rib eyes – one was a grass fed Rangers Valley rib eye with a beef marbling score of 4 and flavour intensity score of 6.

The other rib eye was a grass fed rib eye, with beef marbling score of 2 and flavour intensity score of 4.

And for the rib eyes, the grain fed steak was more tender while the grass fed had a beefier flavour. After comparing the two, again I preferred flavour over texture. I guess I like my steak to taste like steak.

The steaks came with a mini salad, bone marrow, and a choice of mustard/sauces. Though, to be honest, the meat didn’t really need any sauce because they were so juicy on their own.

In addition to steak, we also had several sides. If you go to Steer, you MUST order the onion rings. NO – order TWO SERVES of the onion rings. Just LOOK AT THEM. Aren’t they the most awesome onion rings you’ve ever seen?? And not only did they look good, they were great – so crispy!

Sadly we didn’t do justice to the other sides because of all the food already. There was a very tasty salad – witlof and warm peas covered in gorgonzola dressing that we just nibbled at. (Hiss to the peas.) There was also a pot of very smooth and creamy mashed potoatoes, and a plate of beans and peas (hiss).

We were almost ready to go into a food coma after all that. Fortunately, we had a decent rest after the mains, and then there were a few desserts to share. My favourite was the passionfruit tartlet with sorbet, curd and jelly, though the mace and vanilla panna cotta with strawberry was also very good.

But then again, I haven’t met a baked New York cheesecake that I didn’t like. We also all swooned over the Reece’s peanut butter cup. I love chocolate and peanut butter together.

Maybe I spoke too soon and the passionfruit tartlet wasn’t my fave. It’s a bit like picking your favourite child – they were all good in their own way!

And finally, because apparently four desserts wasn’t enough, the sugar heads on the table asked for the Bombe Alaska with coconut. Okay, I can definitely say this wasn’t my favourite child. At the table, liqueur was poured over the Bombe Alaska and set alight, and we found it too alcoholic for the meringue and cake.

We finished our rather epic feast with some little white chocolate and coconut squares.

For a place named Steer, I was expecting the steaks to be good, but what happily surprised me was the quality of the other food. The appetisers were fantastic and so was the quality of the sides. And the steak, oh yes… the steak… If you like steak, you’re missing out if you don’t pay Steer a visit. Prices are on the higher side, but it’s definitely worth it for the occasional meat up.

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist…)

For more on Steer, check out these blogs:

And for posts from when Steer’s menu had a Brazilian influence:

Steer Bar & Grill
637 Chapel Street
South Yarra
Phone: 03 9040 1188
Web: steerbarandgrill.com.au

No related posts.

This week: interesting skies, home cooking, stuff on skewers, seafood and steak.

For dinner one night, I cooked up a big pot of mussels in a spicy tomato sauce. It was such good dinner and so easy to make. I need to cook mussels more often.

While we ate dinner, one of the cats (Cisco) waited patiently by his bowl to be fed. Poor kitty.

One evening Alastair and I headed to Oriental Charcoal BBQ in Footscray to eat some stuff on sticks. We had lamb and squid.

And I also got a chicken giblet skewer for myself. We also ordered a plate of fried pork dumplings, which were good. The dumplings had rustic thick skins with crisp bottoms and a really juicy filling.

This dish cracked me up. This is “vegetable combination” – a salad of cucumber, bean curd and peanuts in a slightly spicy sesame oil dressing. It was really delicious, but it was most definitely not a vegetable combination.

And finally (we ate a lot) we also had a plate of crispy, spicy chicken wings.

On Friday night I was home alone as Bro was away for the weekend and Alastair went to the cricket. I sat outside with a plate of cheese and nibbles. It was such a gorgeous night.

See? Gorgeous night. Summer is the best.

This weekend, for the first time in a while, we didn’t have any plans. I love relaxing weekends at home. In the morning we did all the housework, and our reward was lunch at Wayside Inn. Writing my post about Wayside Inn on Friday night made me crave their seafood platter, so naturally we had to order one.

We also shared a bowl of fat chips and a steak – grass fed sirloin, which the kitchen kindly sliced up for us. The steak was delicious – perfectly cooked, juicy, flavourful. I was very happy that we shared though because we were very full afterwards.

Oh look, here’s a shot of the sky.

Since the housework had been done, after lunch I spent the afternoon on the couch reading. I buy lots of books from op shops, and I picked this one up (plus several others) for $1 recently. Oh my god, this book is heart wrenching. It’s really good but it’s so sad.

And Sunday – today – for breakfast we had paleo waffles with pear and crispy bacon.

And then I made a pudding – pandanus and ginger panna cotta. To be blogged.

Right now I’m making stock in the pressure cooker from pork bones, and when that’s finished I’m going to pot roast / steam a chook in it. Hooray for lazy relaxing weekends.

No related posts.

Disclosure: Alastair and I dined courtesy of Wayside Inn.

Located on a stretch of City Road that doesn’t seem to have much else around it, Wayside Inn was taken over late last year by the team behind Station Hotel. Being a big fan of Station Hotel (see posts here and here) I was pretty keen to check it out. And so when I was invited a bloggers dinner there before Christmas with stickifingers, Claire and Gem, I was a happy gal indeed.

While the big brother, Station Hotel, is well known for steak, the Wayside Inn’s focus is more towards meat and seafood.

Each day there’s a different meat from the rotisserie. On the current menu, Mondays is chicken, Tuesday is goat (!), Wednesday is venison with red fruits, Thursday is lamb, Friday is suckling pig (!), Saturday is corn fed duck, and Sunday is rib of beef. In addition, there are $12 counter meals from Monday – Saturday and oyster happy hours (6 oysters and a drink for $14) every day between 3.30pm-5.30pm. Talk about value.

And as for seafood, our meal started with a great selection of the seafood dishes. First out was a collection of oysters (priced at between $3.50-$5.50 each, depending on the variety).

My eyes widened when I saw the huge seafood platter, the plateau de la mer royale ($48), that came with mussels, scallops, clams, prawns, crab meat, octopus, smoked salmon, Moreton Bay bugs and samphire. With so much variety and freshness, I think this could be Melbourne’s best value seafood platter.

There was octopus with chorizo, olive oil and Pedro Ximenez ($12.50).

And Harris smoked salmon, which came with blinis ($15).

And finally, the seafood theme ended with a plate of rather good sashimi grade yellowfin tuna that was doused in pink peppercorns, apples and verjuice.

After all that food, we took a long break – thank goodness! Then the mains came out. We had corn fed duck with roast peaches ($34). Now I’m not a huge duck fan, nor a big fan of meat and fruit, but this was quite good – the duck was cooked really well and the peaches did complement the meat.

But wait, there was more. Much more, in fact. There was beef. A kilo of beef… I can’t remember which cut it was now. But it was about a kilo – and yes, we ate most of it.

Mains were accompanied by several sides – a simple but delicious salad of heritage tomatoes, a little pot of roasted vegetables, and really good hand cut chips (all a reasonable $5).

I was very full after mains, but snuck a bite of the desserts. There was a sweet and wobbly vanilla panna cotta with raspberries ($12).

A simple dessert of Yarra Valley berries, cherries and yoghurt sorbet ($12). I really love the simplicity of this dessert, particularly since I generally avoid desserts nowadays.

Not as simple but also utilising cherries was the cherry and almond tart with vanilla ice cream ($12)

And finally, I missed out on trying this one, but here’s the Valrhona chocolate marquise served with poached apricots ($12).

Like I said earlier, I love the Station Hotel, so I wasn’t surprised to find that I really liked the food at Wayside Inn. We had a great dinner and were very spoilt.

And you know what? Writing this post is making me want to head back. I might have to convince Alastair that we should head back this weekend. I doubt he will need much convincing!

Update: we went to Wayside Inn for lunch the day after I posted this.

For more on Wayside Inn, check out the following blogs:

The Wayside Inn
446 City Road
South Melbourne
Phone: 9682 9119
Web: waysideinn.com.au

No related posts.

Five reasons why brioche rocks:

1: Butter.
2: Butter.
3: Butter.
4: Butter.
5: Butter.

Need more convincing? Here’s five more reasons.

6: You can fill it with almost anything.
7: It justifies buying a stand mixer.
8: It can be sweet for dessert, or savoury for a snack.
9: It’s French for awesome. (I might’ve just made that up. Actually – I definitely made that up.)
10: It’s like bread, pastry and cake all mixed together.

Can you tell I have a high opinion of brioche? I love making it. Almost every time I go to a picnic, I end up baking mini brioches and sandwich different fillings inside. So far I’ve put in pork belly, pulled pork, chicken patties and beef/pork patties. (Don’t ask me to pick a favourite – they’re all good in their own way.)

The recipe I use for brioche is from the trusty Cook’s Companion. I tend to split the making into two days – the first day is for mixing the dough, a first rise, and the forming of individual buns. After a second rise in the fridge overnight, the second day is for baking and eating.

Making brioche really does justify the purchase of a stand mixer. I’m sure you can do it by hand but it would be quite a fair amount of effort. Even with the mixer, it takes about ten minutes of mixing/kneading before the butter can be added, and another ten-ish minutes after that to work all the butter in. Fortunately most of the time you can just leave the mixer to do it’s magic while you get on with other things – that is, if you own a decent mixer. I once owned a mixer that would “walk” when mixing dough. If you own a mixer that walks, don’t leave it alone! Mine walked itself right off the kitchen bench… (yes, it broke, so sad.) It wasn’t mixing brioche at the time, so at least I didn’t have to suffer the double disappointment of having a broken mixer as well as semi-mixed brioche dough. Because that would be pretty sad indeed.

Brioche

From The Cook’s Companion

This quantity is enough for a 500g loaf or 10 mini buns. I normally double the recipe.

250g plain flour
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon instant dried yeast
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon sugar
3 egg yolks, lightly beaten
75g softened butter

Warm the milk slightly and stir in the sugar, until it has dissolved. Set aside to cool for a bit.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together the flour, salt and yeast and fit the mixer with a dough hook.

Combine the egg yolks and warm milk mixture.

Make a well in the flour and pour in the liquid. Mix to a dough. With the mixer on low, work until the dough forms a smooth ball – it’ll take about 10 minutes.

Keep the mixer going while you add the butter in two lots. The dough will gradually absorb all the butter and it will be shiny and smooth and come away cleanly from the side of the bowl. It could take a while – just keep it mixing.

Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and place it in a warm, draught-free place for about two hours, or until it doubles in size.

Knock back the dough, tip it onto a workbench and knead it briefly by hand. Shape it into a loaf or – if making individual loafs – divide it into ten pieces. I like to weigh the dough, divide the weight by ten, and then weigh each piece to make sure they’re the same (pendantic!). If making individual buns, place each bun into muffin trays to keep them separate. Sprinkle with sesame seeds or poppy seeds if desired – it makes them look more burger bun like.

Allow to rise again, covered, for 1 hour. Alternatively, place the dough, covered, into the fridge to rise overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180°C and bake for 30 minutes for a single loaf, or about 10-15 minutes for individual brioches. They will be well risen and golden. Tip out of the tin on to a baking tray and return to the oven for another 5 minutes to brown.

Allow to cool before using.

Related posts:

1. Soup Sunday: Curried pumpkin and kumara soup + onion focaccia
2. Homemade pizza
3. Vanilla vanilla cupcakes