Peanut butter Chocolate Fondants

Who doesn't love chocolate? Everybody loves chocolate!! Do you know whats better than chocolate? Chocolate with peanut butter! Since we've been having some cold weather of late, oh summer how I wish that you hadn't stood me up, I had a craving for something sweet, hot and rich. So naturally I turned to the good old chocolate fondant. But the plain old chocolate fondant just wasn't doing it for me anymore, so I decided to make it a little more interesting by adding a little peanut butter to the centers so when you dig in a volcano of peanut butter spurts out of the middle. My grand visions certainly didn't turn out that way, but it was pretty satisfying nonetheless.

To make the peanut butter center, I keep aside a little of the chocolate mixture and then add a generous amount of peanut butter to that. Then I put the peanut butter/chocolate mixture into the middle of the 2/3 filled ramekins. The peanut butter changes the consistency of the chocolate batter, instead of ending up with a very fluid lava like center the peanut butter makes it all a bit thick. So the centers stay soft and gooey, but not as runny as I would like. I think it needs a bit of tweaking. Anyway here is the recipe and a video to tease you with.

Peanut butter Chocolate Fondants

INGREDIENTS

Makes 4

100g good quailty dark chocolate

100g unsalted butter

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

50g castor sugar

30g plain flour

2 tbsp crunchy peanut butter

extra butter and cocoa powder

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180C

In a double boiler, melt together the chocolate and butter, set aside and allow to cool slightly. In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs, yolks and castor sugar until light and fluffly roughly 2-3 minutes on medium speed.

Combine the chocolate into the eggs, then fold through the flour. Using 1 cup capacity ramekins, grease the outside with a little butter, then dust the grease with some cocoa powder, this will prevent the batter from sticking. Spoon the mixture into the ramekins, about 2/3 of the way full. Add the peanut butter to the remaining chocolate mixture, mix until just combined. Divide this evenly into the 4 ramekins, making sure to get the peanut butter mixture as close to the center of the ramekin as possible.

Bake for 12 minutes at 180C

The mixture can be made ahead of time and kept in the fridge in the ramekins, when baking adjust the cooking time by 2-3 minutes to compensate for the cold mixture.

Duchess of Spotswood

Duchess Of Spotswood

87 Hudsons Road

Spotswood, Victoria

03 9391 6016

Pork and I have a love/hate relationship. I love it to bits, but for some reason it hates being in me. Despite the tummy aches and some common sense I still order pork at every opportunity possible, so visiting the Duchess of Spotswood is a bit of a no brainer. The Duchess has been on my radar for a little while, especially since it received a fair bit of attention from printed media and the blogging world late last year. As an extra treat for Daz's birthday last month we went to the Duchess for breakfast before spending the day at Scienceworks. Before you judge me for going to Scienceworks, its actually a whole heap of fun. You get to act like a kid again discovering that hand/eye coordination is severely impeded when one sense is taken away from you. My particular favorite was a sperm race, before you freak out - it was all computer simulated. Two sperms are pitted against each other, in a race to see who gets to the ovum first. It was literally Pacman replaced with a sperm, we had three attempts and Daz won every round, lets face it sperm racing is not my forté. Ah hem...back to the Duchess.

Before I go on, I have to tell you I loved it!! My only regret is not ordering myself two sets of breakfast! The place is usually packed on a weekend, but service still remains prompt and courteous. So many other places just fold under the pressure, but they seem to take it in their stride. I ordered the Duchess of Pork - Crispy pig's jowl with fried egg, rich truffle sauce and sourdough toast. I was in pork heaven. It was just gorgeous, what was promised on the menu was well delivered. The outside of the pork was so crispy it was beyond sexy, but that crispy outer layer gave way to some seriously rich and juicy flavorsome meat. The jus and truffle just brought one more layer of flavour complexity. Not to mention the soft yolks of the egg that drench the whole lot in an egg gravy. I'm in love with this breakfast!

Daz ordered the Prince of Wales - House smoked salmon fillet with potato pancake, poached egg, and sourdough toast. Again another winner. You have to admire a busy cafe that takes the time to smoke their own salmon fillets, the care and attention definitely translated to the plate.

As a breakfast destination, this may well become one of my regular haunts. If you haven't already tried the Duchess get yourself down there. I know its on the other side of the West Gate, but with some fine weather you can make a day of it by visiting Williamstown beach and even grabbing yourself an ice cream on Nelson Place for and afternoon refresher.

Ezard

Dining Date: October 2010
Rating: 36th, 2 Stars
Chef: Teage Ezard & Sharn Greiner
Location: 187 Flinders La, Melbourne, VIC, (03) 9639 6811
Website: www.ezard.com.au

I’ve been putting off writing this post for a very long time, since October last year to be precise. The exact reasons why I’ve been putting it off are varied, mainly because I didn’t have a great experience at Ezard, but I know that loads of people love the place and that generally it’s an establishment with pretty high standards. For some reason I thought I was being unfair giving it a bad slant considering I’ve only been there once. But then again we have to all understand that a majority of restaurants have once only customers, and an unhappy experience tends to stick in the brain.

We decided to go along to Ezard in October to experience the signature eight course tasting menu. A menu comprising some of Ezard’s most popular and distinctive dishes, crafted over 11 years of business, some of which have even made it to immortalisation in Ezard’s cookbook…Ezard. Daz and I were pretty excited, in our mind there was no better way to experience a restaurant than a selection of their very best. We had already made up our minds - we were going the full hog and prepared our stomachs for the onslaught…but that wasn’t to be.

As soon as we were handed the menu we were talked out of having the eight course degustation, it seems that we had an early booking and that 8 courses would take too long, so we were steered towards our choice of 5 from the eight on offer. To say I was a little disappointed would be an understatement…but in the end it was probably a blessing. I’ll probably get shot for this, but the food wasn’t that great and the service was bordering on rude. We were ignored for a good part of the night, and the only smile we got from the waiter was at the very last course, probably because we were about to vacate the table.

Bread is one of those things that is a hit or miss. In some places you get wonderfully warm and fresh bread with possibly some good quality olive oil, in others it might be day old leftovers with cold hard butter. Ezard stepped their game up, beautiful soft bread, good quality olive oil and some flavoured dust to accompany your bread consumption. This was seriously good, there was a rosemary and Parmesan, a red pepper and I don’t remember what the last one was, but nonetheless….I could have eaten an entire loaf of bread covered in these “dusts”, the best thing about them was that they were replaced quite often.



Also to start we had a small shot filled with foam to kick start the meal, I missed the description of this but thought that I should add it for posterity sake, I think it was cucumber and prawn. Sadly the foam quickly collapsed so the photo looks a little sad. But it was quite pleasant and was getting us in the right mood.



Asparagus, Persian fetta and witlof salad with poached quail egg, soft herbs and hazelnut dressing. This was nice, light and tasty. The veggies were still crunchy so it was a real sense of eating spring, the soft quail egg acted as its own little self saucing device.



Oxtail wonton dumpling in sweet and sour tamarind broth, lime, chilli and shaved coconut. Unfortunately this dish was more on the sour side than sweet. The tamarind and lime both attacked your palate, it was a little bit of a killer but the flavours were all there. The oxtail dumpling was pretty delicious – the soft gelatinous meat inside the thin skinned dumpling was really well done, I just wish the broth wasn’t so sour. I actually have a copy of this recipe, so I’ll give it a go myself.



Crispy skin barramundi with Chinese broccoli, yellow curry dressing and baby cress salad, give me a massive bowl of that curry and plain rice and I’ll be in heaven. Like the oxtail dumpling, there were elements that stood out clearly above the rest and the yellow curry was the winner for me. There was nothing wrong with the barramundi, its just that the curry distracted you, in a good way, from everything else on the plate.



Five spiced bangalow sweet pork belly with shredded apple and coriander salad, ginger wine glaze. When something is placed in front of you that has a perfectly positioned piece of crackling, you know what you’ll put in your mouth first….bye bye crackling. The pork was soft and juicy and you cant go wrong with the combination of pork and apple, but the glaze once again was a little on the sour side. I completely understand the pairing of ginger/sourness with this dish, but by this stage I was totally over the whole sour element in every dish – sourness from the dumpling broth, sourness from the yellow curry, and now the sourness in the glaze…it was becoming a little repetitive. If I had any of the dishes on their own they would have been great, but as a combination and one after the other – my stomach and tongue were taking a beating.



Open Wagyu beef burger with brioche bread and soft centred quail egg. Daz loved this one, and any wonder really, he’s a man and a burger was place in front of him - he was bound to love it. For me, it was good but not great.



Banana parfait, cinnamon tuille and passionfruit syrup, the flavours were all there….a winning combination……except, the parfait had massive ice crystals in it. Sigh. But how can I be mad with a dessert which comes out with a banana and basil hat?…..how cute is that!



Overall, it was a bit of a fizzer. To be honest sometimes service plays a big part in your experience, the food was bad per say, but it could definitely be made better with a smile and some finesse from the wait staff. I’ll be back at Ezard, I really don’t think it fair to judge the whole affair on one off night - there were some elements there that really sparked my interest, so they do deserve a second chance.

On a completely different note….Daz has started a whole NEW blog. This time it’s about interesting stuff, sorry babes but only a select number of people are into android development. This time he’s started a blog covering his thirty before 30 challenge. As a 29th birthday present I’ve given him 30 challenges to complete before the big three O smacks him in the face and he’s going to chronicle them in blog form. The challenge will last 12 months and he is duty bound to complete them all, the catch is that he’ll find out what the challenge is only a week before he completes it. So head on over to the Thirty before 30 blog to check out what he’s up to.

Rabbit tortellini, Jerusalem artichoke Puree and Rabbit Broth

To be honest, I made this recipe a little while ago. After eating at Sarti I was inspired by the flavours in their rabbit tortellini with Jerusalem artichoke puree, so of course me being me I decided to recreate the dish. I actually made the dish back when Jerusalem artichokes were in season. They grow in my garden and at the moment the plant is well above my head ready to burst out into its floral prettiness. Anyway back to the dish, since its Chinese new year and it’s the year of the rabbit, I thought what better time to post this recipe than now.

Jerusalem Artichoke plant

I love all the flavours in this dish, the nuttiness from the hazelnuts, the richness from the broth and the subtle gamy flavour from the rabbit all work so fantastically together. I’m actually very proud of my effort, and without tooting my horn too loudly I actually think my dish turned out better than the one I had at Sarti.

The whole recipe is pretty straight forward, the only difficult part is folding the pasta so it looks pretty, I’m getting better but by no means am I perfect yet. As a kid, my mum never had the patience to fold all her tortellini properly, they were usually plain half moon shaped so I’ve had to learn the art of tortellini making as an adult. The other piece of advice I would offer is to really invest some time and effort into producing a good quality rabbit stock, it’s really the star of the dish and any hard work put in the preparing stage will pay off when it comes to the eating. So without any further delay, here is the recipe.

Rabbit Tortellini Filling
INGREDIENTS

1 medium sized rabbit
2 egg whites
2 small golden shallots, peeled cut in half
2 cloves garlic, peeled cut in half
2 tablespoons of double cream
Salt and pepper

METHOD

1. Debone the rabbit, make sure to remove as much meat from the rabbit as possible. Set the bones aside, you will need these to prepare the rabbit stock.

2. Roughly cut the rabbit meat into small pieces and place in a food processor. Pulse the meat until it has been roughly chopped by the food processor, this step helps to get the whole process underway.

3. Add the shallots and garlic and processor further. Then add the eggwhites and cream, not forgetting to season well with salt and pepper, process the mixture until you get the consistency of sausage meat. Once this is achieve place in the fridge until needed.

Rabbit Broth
This can be flavoured any way you want. If you like it plain it can be just the rabbit bones and some simple white wine, if you like it herb infused you can go mad with plenty of different herbs. I’ll give you the ingredients that I used which resulted in a subtle but rich flavour.

INGREIDENTS

1 rabbit carcass (left over from rabbit tortellini filling)
4 golden shallots
4-5 garlic cloves
100mL dry white wine
2 bay leaves
4-5 large sage leaves
10 whole black peppercorns
1 tablespoon butter
Olive oil

METHOD

1. In a large stock pot add a splash of oil olive and heat over medium heat. Add the rabbit bones and sear until the rabbit bones and any meat left on them turn a deep golden colour. This is a very key step, a big portion of your flavour will come from the browning of the bones, so take your time here. Don’t do it too fast because you’ll just burn your bones and add a bitter flavour, however a nice golden colour will add a caramelised flavour.

2. Add the shallot and garlic to the pan and cook until fragrant, 1-2 minutes. Add the white wine to deglaze the pan. Cook until the alcohol in the wine has evaporated, 2-3 minutes. Add the bay leaves, sage leaves, pepper corns and enough cold water to cover the bones, and a little salt to season. Allow the water to come to a simmer and leave it to gently simmer for at least 45 minutes. The longer the better.

3. Allow the broth to reduce down to a ¼. Once at this stage strain the bones and transfer the broth to a small clean saucepan. Add the butter, check the seasoning – adjust if necessary and set aside until needed. Before serving, reheat the broth.

Jerusalem Artichoke Purée
INGREIDENTS
500g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled
500ml whole milk
30g butter
One small potato, peeled
1-2 tbsp double cream

METHOD
1. Cut the Jerusalem artichokes into pieces along with the potato, ensure that all the pieces are roughly the same size so that they cooked evenly. Place in a pan with the milk. Bring the milk to a simmer and cook the artichokes for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are very soft.
2. Remove the artichokes and potato from the milk, do not discard the milk as it may be required later. Place the artichokes and potato in a food processor bowl.
3. Add the butter and process until a puree is achieved, you may need to add some of the reserved milk to achieve the right consistency. At this point you may be left with a few lumps in you puree, to remove the lumps pass the puree through a fine sieve. Transfer the puree to a pan and add the cream and season well with salt and pepper. Set aside for later, before serving re-heat puree.

Spinach Pasta with Semolina Flour

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup very finely ground semolina flour
3/4 cup plain flour
2 egg yolks (room temperature)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups of spinach leaves

METHOD
1. Remove stems from spinach leaves and blanch in boiling water for 2 minutes. Remove from water and rinse in cold water to quickly cool the spinach. Squeeze as much water out of the spinach leaves as possible. In a blender or food processor, blitz spinach to get a smooth puree.

2. In a food processor, combine the egg yolks and spinach puree and mix until combined, this will only take a few seconds

3. Add the remaining ingredients and pulse until a firm dough is formed. If the mixture seems a little dry then add a few drops of lukewarm water until the mixture comes together.

4. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead the dough for a few minutes, just to make sure that everything is incorporated evenly. Wrap the dough in some glad wrap and Put aside to rest for 10-20minutes.

5. After resting, roll the pasta out thinly and put together the rabbit tortellini. Since I always have trouble with my tortellini (sometimes they get a little soggy before I get them into the boiling water) I give my self a little insurance. As I make the tortellini, I place them on a freezer tray and snap freeze them. That way they stay exactly as I made them and are easier to handle come cooking time. This also means I can make my pasta well in advance. Just make sure to adjust your cooking time according to the state of your tortellini.

6. Cook tortellini in boiling salted water until the pasta is al dente. I won’t give a cooking time because it depends on too many factors, thickness of your pasta, the temperature of your tortellini, the quantity of tortellini that go into the pan and so on. The best way to judge is to taste test, always an excuse for a sneaky nibble right?
Plating
To garnish -

A few spinach leaves
A few roasted hazelnuts
Place a big tablespoon of puree on the plate. Add a few of the tortellini and sprinkle the spinach and hazelnuts on top. Spoon a few tablespoons of the broth over the entire dish and enjoy.

Josie Bones. Meat + Beer = Full

Josie Bones
98 Smith Street
Collingwood
03 9417 1878

Look! Its a naked rabbit *giggles*

When Conor from Hold the beef was in town recently to watch a furry little yellow ball getting smashed across a tennis court, Agnes from Off the Spork suggested Josie Bones for a catch up, I was more than willing to join in on the meat and beer fest. If you’re not familiar with Josie bones, thats ok – neither was I. It was only on the morning of the planned dinner that I realised that Josie Bones is actually run and owned by the guy who came third on the first season of masterchef, that's Chris Badenoch and Julia Jenkins from the same show. Josie Bones open in the last quarter of 2010 and it looks like they are doing a roaring trade. That aside, I was totally intrigued by the notion of a speciality beer place that serves small plates of mostly meat inspired dishes, sounds like its completely up my alley. To all my vegetarian friends, I love spinach but I’m sorry meat is what makes me tick.

At the time, the weather in Melbourne was a little on the fresh side. Now that the temperature has really ramped up, it would be a great spot to get some friends together – have some crackling of the day and slowly make your way through the long list of local and imported beers. And when I say long, I mean LONG. But back to the crackling of the day, that was GOOD! We ended up with chicken crackling and pork crackling. My preference was the chicken crackling. Slightly on the salty side and really packed a crunch. The pork crackling was almost teeth shattering. A great way to get the stomach juices flowing. Although by the end of it, I wondered where they got all the chicken skin from. There was a distinct lack of chicken on the menu. I envisioned a flock of naked chickens roaming the country side getting seriously sunburnt.



We ordered a variety of dishes to share amongst us. We’ll start with the trotter fritters and romesco sauce. They were really crunchy on the outside with a soft juicy pork center. They were darn good until I got to the other end of my trotter square. One side had loads of soft meat and chopped up skin, while the other end was a big chunk of pork skin. Slightly disappointing, but sometimes these things happen. I was the unfortunate one to cop it.



Next we had the lamb tartare, radish and mint and wheat beer brioche. This was a first for me, I had never eaten raw lamb before, so wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I imagined a fatty mutton tasting hunk of meat that would be really chewy, luckily this wasn’t the case. The lamb was really lean and tender. The cute quail egg sitting ontop added an element of lusciousness, just like a good traditional tartare. I threw a good smothering of mustard on my portion, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.



Hmmm, this is a blogger fail so bear with me. We order a special which was rabbit terrine with prunes soaked in some alcohol (which I cant remember) along with...I think...onion jam. I’m sure someone will correct me. I really liked this dish, the rabbit was really moist and the whole terrine was light on gelatine. Daz hates gelatinous dishes, so this was a hit for him too.



So far have you noticed the distinct lack of vegetable matter? Well to counter act the protein overload we ordered Baby Nicola potato salad. It was creamy and a pretty decent potato salad. It served its purpose to introduce some fibre into our meal, well the small amount of fibre that resided in the skin of the potatoes.



Next we had octopus and bone marrow cigar with green mango salad. I’m not going to lie, I’ll give it to you straight. This was HORRIBLE! I wanted to love it...I really did. I love bone marrow and the whole notion of it being paired with octopus sent me into imagination overdrive, but sadly the reality of the taste bought me crashing back down. It was just a fishy oily mess, I think that is enough said.



Thankfully the second special we ordered saved the day. Pork belly with pickled peach and a creamy puree of some description (Help anyone??). This was good. If I see pork belly on a menu, I more than likely to order it. The skin was crispy and the pork had just enough of fat to make it juicy and moist. I enjoyed the pickled peach with the pork and I’m definitely going to steal that idea for myself.



Last we had Grain feed beef meat, thrice cooked chips and horseradish hollandaise. When I saw this on the menu I had flash back to the thrice cooked chips I had at the botanical. Sadly, to me, these didn’t stack up. They were nowhere near crispy enough for chips that have been cooked three times. You can tell from their pale appearance that they weren’t going to be quite right. Dont get me wrong I still enjoyed them, but it was a little bit of a let down. What was the most interesting moment was that Conor actually had some of the beef....shocking huh?



What I will say about Josie bones is that it has exceptional service. The staff are all so friendly and extremely willing to help on food, wine or beer selection. It was a great way to put you in a seriously good mood, so some how the beer tasted that much better. After we gorged ourselves on meat from a variety of animals, we braved the walked to Cutler and Co in an attempt to score a spot for some dessert. We failed. We ended up at the crepe place across the road, which seems to be fast becoming my backup dessert destination. Everyone has one right? Check out the uber cuteness of our bill patron....bahhh

Results - Crispy Orange Tuile, Chocolate Mousse and Szechuan Pepper Ice-Cream

“Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been over 4 weeks since my last blog post”. Can you believe that it’s been 4 weeks since I posted this recipe and I still haven’t managed to post the results!?! Well I am now here with the long awaited results. I had this all ready to go before the Christmas break, but then a trip interstate, coupled with a few trips to hospital kind of put a dampener on my plans. Everything is ok now, and I can get stuck into filling cyber space with more pictures of food.



This dessert was a little peculiar, but still packed a punch with taste. The Szechuan ice cream was slightly peppery with a lovely fragrant taste which went really well with the tart but sweet candied tomatoes. And before making this dessert, I could never have imagined that tomato and chocolate are a really great combo. I don’t know if I’ll be replacing butter for chocolate in my tomato sandwiches though. I enjoyed the crunch of the zesty tuile too, all in all it was a pretty impressive dessert, at least flavour wise. But the recipe wasn’t exactly my smoothest experience in the kitchen.



I’ve cooked a fair few top 100 recipes since starting this blog, but by far this was the most disastrous of them all. It started with the actual recipe, the mousse called for a sheet of gelatin….of what strength? Who knows. I kinda guessed it and got it wrong, of course, so my mousse turned out a little more rubbery than I had expected, there was no whipping it once it had set, it was set to stay baby!

Then there was the orange almond tuiles. I moulded them into the perfect length and width before going into the oven, but every time the tuile came out of the over a little fatter and wonkier than it had gone in, so all my moulds turned out to be 15ft higher than I was hoping (ok that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point)



Onto the ice cream…“Make sabayon by heating sugar and water to 118C”….errrrrrrr……what water? Did I miss something? In the ingredients list there was no mention of water and how much of it I was supposed to use, so I decided for my sanity’s sake to ditch the recipe and just make ice cream my way, and it turned out pretty good if I don't say so myself.

Another issue with the recipe, in the candied tomatoes section, it didn’t specify whether to drizzle the sugar syrup over the top or toss the tomatoes in it, I went with tossing and thankfully I got it right….sometimes tossing is the right thing to do. I normally don’t have a problem with trying to figure stuff out for myself, but on this particular day it was hot, I was running out of time and using my brain was the last thing I wanted to do, which leads me to the very last problem.

By the end of the whole saga I was over it, I wanted to just eat the darn thing. Spooning the mousse into the freakishly tall tuile moulds seemed all too hard, I broke a fair few before finally getting it in without damaging the shell. Then when it can to making the ice cream quenelles I didn’t care anymore, so I just dumped it on top. I regret it now, but at the time it was the easiest thing to do. A few happy snaps later it was all over, dessert was eaten and the turmoil of slaving in the kitchen was well and truly behind.

Crispy Orange Tuile, Chocolate Mousse and Szechuan Pepper Ice-Cream

And now for the very last course in the Great 3 Course Jacques Reymond Challenge. Dessert is my favorite course of all time, so this one is going to be a doozie. So far we've had balls, balls and duck, hope you've been keeping track or that just sounds like I have a bit of a fetish....ok no guarantees I "DON'T" have a fetish. So strap your self in people, for this is the course to end all courses.....Chocolate, pepper and orange on one plate. As always, here's the recipe with results and photos to follow.

Crispy Orange Tuile, Chocolate Mousse and Szechuan Pepper Ice-Cream

Serves 4-6

The Candied Tomatoes will be the subject of some lively discussion among your guests, as well as the spicy chili pepper flavour of the Szechuan pepper Ice-cream, which perfectly compliments the chocolate and orange

Orange Tuile

100g sugar

50g butter, melted

25g flour

zest 1 orange

75g almond flakes, extra finely chopped

50ml orange juice

Chocolate Mousse

3 egg yolks

20g sugar

150mL milk

75mL cream

1 gelatin sheet, soaked in cold water

100g milk chocolate

30g dark chocolate (70%)

Candied Tomatoes

50mL sugar syrup

1 vanilla bean

1 punnet Roma cherry tomatoes, halved

Szechuan Pepper Ice cream

200g sugar

8 egg yolks

300mL milk

400mL cream

1 1/2 tbs Szechuan pepper

METHOD

Orange Tuile

Preheat oven to 140C. In a bowl, whisk together sugar and melted butter. Add flour, orange zest, almond flakes and orange juice, mix well. Spread thinly onto plastic baking sheet in a 8cmx4cm rectangle shape and bake until golden. Remove and while still hot, mould into a cylinder shape, using a small rolling pin or small bottle

Chocolate Mousse

In a bowl, whisk egg yolks with sugar to make a thick sabayon. In a saucepan, bring milk and cream to the boil and pour into the sabayon. Place back in saucepan on low heat and continue to cook slowly until it thickens, do not boil.

Remove gelatin from cold water and squeeze out excess water. Whisk gelatin into custard mix. Cool to room temperature. In a double boiler or microwave, melt chocolate, and allow to cool to room temperature. When the two mixtures are the same temperature, fold them together. Allow to set in the fridge. Once set, whisk mouse and spoon into piping bag. Set aside.

Szechuan Pepper Ice cream

Make sabayon by heating sugar and water to 118C - use a sugar thermometer to get an accurate temperature. Pour the egg yolks over the mixture and whisk until cool.

Bring milk and cream to the boil and infuse with pepper. Strain after 10 minutes and mix with sabayon. Once cool, churn in an ice cream machine.

Candide tomatoes

sugar syrup is one part sugar to one part water. Add water to a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Once boiling add sugar, stirring until sugar dissolves completely. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely.

Preheat oven to 50C-60C. In a small saucepan, place the sugar syrup and vanilla bean and warm slightly for 5 minutes to infuse. Strain.

Place tomatoes, cut side up on a tray lined with baking paper and bake in the oven on very low heat until dry and chewy but not hard.

Serving

On serving plate, place orange tuile upright and slightly off center. Fill 1/3 of the tuile with the chocolate mousse. Place 3 pieces of candied tomato on top and fill another 1/3 of the tuile, balancing a quenelle of Szechuan pepper on top.

Ginger Bread Almond Ice Cream Sandwiches

Its December and that means two things, hot weather and Christmas!!!! Its been a funny start to December in Melbourne, hot weather coupled with torrential downpours converting our once mild little town into a tropical oasis. There’s not much you can do to get away from the sticky-ness, apart from jumping in a swimming pool, or if you’re in the city - the Yarra river. Note – I do not advocate the practice of jumping into the Yarra river, do that at your own peril. Another way to get away from the heat is to eat ice cream.

I’ll find any excuse to eat ice cream, I’ve been known to eat ice cream in the middle of winter, and I don’t mean sitting at home on my couch….I mean going out and hunting down some gelato! So considering that Christmas is just around the corner (oh gosh…already!), I decided to make ginger bread almond ice cream sandwiches.



The ginger bread cookies are chewy, so when you bite into the sandwich you get the soft spicy goodness of the cookie, coupled with a cool creamy ice cream middle. I wanted to make the ice cream really creamy, similar to commercial ice cream sandwiches so you’ll notice that my recipe calls for 2 types of cream to boost the fat content of the ice cream…hmmmm fat. If your health conscious, you can skip that and just use more of one type, but lets face it, how many people who are making their own ice cream are truly health conscious? I’ve also devised an easy way to make ice cream without owning an ice cream machine. It involves a KitchenAid and funnily enough, a freezer. Check out the recipe for more info.

While I was making the ginger bread cookies, Daz asked me to make him ginger bread men. I wasn’t going to deny him, I really didn’t have an excuse not to make them, dough was ready to go and I already had a ginger bread man cookie cutter. And they were so cute in the end anyway, especially with their green t-shirt. Everyone had a lot of fun, until someone got their head bitten off!



Chewy Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients:

Makes roughly 30 cookies.

3/4 cup malt extract or tracel or golden syrup
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/8 cup castor sugar
1/3 cup water
80 gram butter, softened
3 1/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method

1. Combine together the tracel, brown sugar, sugar, water and butter in a medium sized bowl until smooth. Sift together the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, cloves and cinnamon. Gently stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until all of the ingredients are properly combined. Make a large ball and wrap the dough in gladwrap and place in the fridge for least 4 hours or overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to achieve roughly a 5mm thickness. Using a round cookie dough cutter, cut dough then transfer cookies to an ungreased baking paper lined baking tray. Make sure to leave a small distance between each cookie, they wont get much bigger, but you don’t want to run the risk of them sticking together.

3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven and place on wire racks to cool. At this stage the cookies can be placed in an airtight container and will keep at room temperature for 1 week. If constructing ice cream sandwiches, once cooled place cookies in the freezer ready to have ice cream filling added.

Almond Ice cream

INGREDIENTS

100ml almond milk
3 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
50ml pouring cream
80 mL double cream
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped or 1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste

METHOD

1. Bring almond milk to the boil in a small saucepan, once boiled add vanilla bean, and set aside.

2. In a medium sized stainless steel bowl whisk egg yolks and sugar together by hand, then pour almond milk onto the egg yolk mixture while whisking. Cook mixture over a bain-marie while whisking continuously for about 10 minutes or until it begin to thicken thickened. A good way of testing it is if it still smells like raw egg than its not cooked enough, or if it coats the back of a spoon and keeps a straight line when you wipe some away with your finger.

3. Once thickened cool sabayon over ice while still whisking. Once completely cooled whisk both types of cream into the sabayon. Place the mixture into an ice cream machine and follow manufacturers instruction. Or use my method: A couple of hours before starting place your KitchenAid stainless steel bowl in the freezer. Once you get to the cooled sabayon/cream mixture, transfer to the frozen mixer bowl and whisk with your KitchenAid for 2 minutes. Transfer to the freezer for 15-20minutes then whisk again for 2 minutes, making sure to scrap down the sides. Repeat this again 4 or 5 times until the ice cream becomes the consistency of a thick soft serve. No need to buy a ice cream machine, and you’ll get perfect, icicle free ice cream every time!

4. To make the ice cream fillers for the sandwiches, place ice cream in a glad wrap lined rectangular plastic container. For thick ice cream sandwiches, make sure that that ice cream is roughly 2 cm thick. Cover the top of the ice cream with more glad wrap and place in the freezer for 2-3 hours to fully set. Once set, use the same sized cookie cutter you used for making the gingerbread cookies and cut round ice cream sandwich fillers. Place back in the freezer for 10 minutes or so and then assemble your sandwiches. Cookie, ice cream filler, cookie……enjoy!!

While we’re on the subject of Christmas, on the weekend Daz and I went along to the Scandinavian Christmas Bazaar. It was a last minute decision, so I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to be instore, I was imagine fire breathing donkey’s, three legged men and loads of Swedish meatballs. Sadly, of the three only the last one was on offer. We had a quick bite to eat, devouring Räksmörgås, Æbleskiver's and Frikadeller's . It seemed like fun, so I’ll definitely be adding it to my calendar for next year.

Æbleskiver

Frikadeller

Results - Roasted Duck Breast, Braised Turnips, and a Mango and Lemon Sauce

Sometimes I wonder how chef's come up with flavour combinations. Do they have the Issac Newton moment when an apple falls out of a tree smacking them plainly in the face?, or do they purposefully set out to challenge our traditional take on flavour unions? I'm not exactly sure how Jacques Reymond thought of putting mango and turnip together, but let me tell you it was a stroke of genius! I really didn't think that my favourite part of this dish would be the combination of the sweet juicy mango with the soft but tender turnip. And to be brutally honest, that is the only aspect of this entire dish that I will probably be making again. Before yesterday I had no idea that there was more than one use for a turnip, the first being a implement to throw at your partner when they eat the last piece of chocolate in the pantry.

I totally failed with the pickeled wombok (aka a Chinese cabbage that sounds strangely like a small furry animal). I don't know if I read the recipe wrong, or I totally missed the point, but I followed every step and at the end of it I was left with slightly damp crisp cabbage. I stared at it for a little while, kinda hoping it would magically turn into the right thing, but 20 minutes later and nothing. So I got frustrated and just wilted the whole lot in a hot pan, I may have committed a culinary sin, but in the end I wasn't exactly overcome with a taste sensation, so I'm not too upset that I got it wrong.

The other thing that I really liked about this dish was the orange and lemon sauce. I really enjoyed the fragrant star anise and szechuan pepper in the sauce, and I thought that the whole thing came together really well, who would have thought that orange and duck were a match made in heaven!!! The French may be onto something here. Once again though, the big spoiler was the limp, drab tasting cabbage. I strongly recommend making the rest of the dish and leave out the accompanying pickled cabbage. Maybe just steam some crunchy string beans, or better yet just save your stomach for a huge serving of dessert. Speaking of dessert, onto my last challenge in the Jacques Reymond 3 course dinner. Stay tuned for the sugar high!

Roasted Duck Breast, Braised Turnips, and a Mango and Lemon Sauce

And now for the main course to the Jacques Reymond 3 course delight! So far the appetizer and the starter have gone well. I'm not so sure about the main course though. While flipping through the Cuisine du Temps book I had a real hard time settling on something. Nothing really caught my eye, other than the suckling pig. But that seemed a little indulgent considering normally you have to buy a whole suckling pig, a challenge even to the well seasoned gluttons that Daz and I are. So instead I'm going to attempt the roasted duck breast. I'm a fan of duck, so hopefully this will turn out well, however the mango and lemon sauce screams a little "sweet and sour" to me which apparently is the whole point to this dish, hopefully it will be a good combination.

After reading through the recipe, it also suggests to serve the dish with a side of pickled wombok. Now, if your a little ignorant like me....no its not a small hairy Australian marsupial, its actually Chinese cabbage. So in fact this recipe includes a bonus side recipe, helping with the all important veggie count.

As always, here is the recipe and stay tuned for the happy ending.

Roasted Duck Breast, Braised Turnips, and a Mango and Lemon Sauce, Serves 4

This Dish is all about the four tastes, saltiness (duck), acidity (lemon), sourness (turnip) and sweetness (mango)

4 duck breasts, skin on

1/2 teaspoon flaked sea salt

Lemon Sauce

2 tablespoons palm sugar, grated

1/4 teaspoon Szechuan pepper

1/4 cinnamon stick

1/2 star-anise

3 cardamon pods

zest 1/2 lemon

1 teaspoon julienned ginger

25 mL sherry vinegar

250mL orange juice

1 teaspoon custard powder

juice of 1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon ginger juice

Braised Turnips

2 small turnips, peeled and sliced

1 tablespoon sugar

30g butter

100 mL chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

1 mango sliced

Clean the duck breast of excess sinew, score the skin and rub with salt. Place the duck skin side down in a heavy frying pan on low heat to render out the fat layer between the skin and the meat. It is not necessary to preheat the pan. Do not turn the breast until it has cooked three-quarters of the way through - approximately 15 minutes. Cook the other side for 30 seconds to a minute. Remove from pan and rest for approximately 5 minutes

Lemon Sauce

Caramelise the palm sugar in a small saucepan. Add the spices, lemon zest and ginger and cook until fragrant. Deglaze with sherry vinegar and orange juice and reduce by half to 125 mL. To finish the sauce add the lemon juice and ginger juice to taste. Adjust consistency with custard powder.

Braised turnips

Caramelise sugar in a frying pan until golden. Add a couple of small knobs of butter and the turnips. Once glazed lightly, add a little chicken stock and simmer gently until tender. You need just enough chicken stock so that by the time the liquid has evaporated, the turnips are cooked. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

To Serve

Put sliced mango in the center of the plate and place braised turnips on top, then duck breast, skin side up. Pour over lemon sauce. Pickled wombok is also and excellent accompaniment to this dish

Pickled Wombok

A fresher, more textured alternative to traditional sauerkraut.

1/2 wombok

1 salad onion, sliced

1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, lightly crushed

1 tablespoon clarified butter

125 mL white vinegar

125mL white wine

1 bay leaf

2 stalks thyme

3 juniper berries

2 garlic cloves, crushed

75mL chicken stock

pinch of salt

Separate the leaves and stalks of the wombok. Slice the stalks thinly on an angle.

In a medium sized saucepan, sweat onion and pepper in a little clarified butter until soft. Add vinegar and reduce until almost evaporated. Add white wine, bay leaf, thyme, juniper berries and garlic and reduce by half. Add chicken stock to taste, season with a pinch of salt.

To cook wombok, bring pickling liquid to the boil and pour over the wombok. Remove from liquid to serve.

Sarti

Sarti6 Russell PlMelbourne, 3000(03) 9639 7822

Daz and I often perve on people…..of both sexes, I know its a little weird and slightly strange, but I'm not like most girls. I love checking out shoes and dresses and I often try to get Daz involved, but he’s just not that into females shoes. I must admit though, I'm the one who actively points candidates out to him. While we were dining at Sarti on a particular warm evening we spotted an attractive lady who had a stunning black dress on. As I was admiring her dress another woman walked in with the exact same black dress on. We all stared and were eager to find out what would happen when they both discovered they weren't the most original pair in the room. About a minute later our curiosity was satisfied when the original lady returned to her seat and noticed the other lady sitting at the next table. A few nervous laughs later and it was all sorted. It was such a fascinating incident, we all know how competitive women can get, especially when out on the town wearing your favourite little black dress. I don’t know what we were expecting, maybe some mid meal entertainment, nothing like a scrag fight!

Enough about the scenery, onto the food. We decided to share some of the stuzzichini to start. If you don’t already know stuzzichini are small share plates similar to tapas. So we had Tartare of wagyu beef, porcini acid, smoked tomato, pine nut oil. Big pieces of fleshy juicy wagyu, crunchy pieces of pine nut all topped with very smoky tiny tomatoes. The oil was quite smoky giving the meat a distinct bbq taste. I really enjoyed this dish, although I couldn’t help but want some nice pickled gherkins.



Next we had Zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta and herbs, the zucchini was tender but still crunchy. The outer batter was really crispy and the filling was fluffy and pundgent from the mixed herbs and spices added to the mix.



There was no way that we weren’t going to order the ‘Neo Nati fritti’, soft shell crab, ‘peperoni’ and ‘n’ duja crumble’. If you didn’t already know, Daz is a soft shell crab enthusiast, in that he will chose that over any other dish available. So we were really pleased when it arrived and lived up to its name. Thick pieces of juicy crab, with a spicy pepper "stir fry" underneath. Once again the outer shell was slightly crunchy with the soft flesh inside still very juicy. The crab was extremely fresh which was a nice little bonus.



The stuzzichini were really good, sadly the rest of the meal was a little bit downhill. I’ll just warn you now.

I ordered the Spinach ‘tortelli’, filled with rabbit, jerusalem artichoke puree, roasted hazelnuts, and rabbit broth. The pasta was a little undercooked, it wasn’t al dente it was “al raw-o”. It was even more evident considering the rabbit filling was very delicate and moist. The puree was fantastic along with the addition of hazelnut and rabbit broth. I really enjoyed it, however the undercooked pasta was a bit of a let down for me.



Miss Coco LV ordered the pasta of the day, Pasta with duck ragout. It was good to see big pieces of duck scattered throughout the pasta, but once again the same issue as above, the pasta was slightly undercooked, so that totally ruined it for me.



Daz being the big red blooded man that he is ordered the Chargrilled 1824 ribeye ‘con la vera caponata siciliana’. The opposite to above happened here. Daz asked for a medium rare steak an instead he got a medium almost medium/well steak. It was such a shame considering it would have been a beautiful piece of meat. The other draw back was that the caponata was really oily, not just a little bit, there was a puddle of oil left over on Daz's plate after he finished. The other weird thing was that the steak was served on such a small narrow plate, making it almost impossible for Daz to eat. At one point the steak almost ended up in his lap.



After the main meals we were really disappointed, not to mention the service was lacking. The were very few of the wait staff that actually smiled, and none of the dishes were explained to us. So as soon as the dish arrived it was plonkt on the table and then not a word was said. I’m one for detail, especially with food, so found it really impersonal. Hopefully the desserts would pick up our mood.

Daz ordered the Lemon tart. Poor Daz, he has such a bad record when desserts are concerned. He was expecting a nice slice of lemon tart, or an small individual lemon tart, instead he got three tiny cubes of lemon tart with a lovely display of fruit and crumble and cream. It was a little strange considering the rest of the meal was served in a very traditional sense, but his dessert had a very modern appearance. The tart was pretty good though, nice and tangy with a crispy caramelized top. However Daz’s disappointment was not overcome by flavour, I guess great expectations are easily shattered



I had the Pistachio ‘panna cotta’, caramel salted popcorn. Fail!!!! The pistachio panna cotta didnt taste like pistachio, it was a little stodgy and the caramel salted popcorn was neither caramel nor salted....but it did have popcorn in it though. I'm not exactly sure what happened here, but the whole thing was a massive failure.



Miss Coco LV had the Chocolate semi freddo, traces of pumpkin. Thankfully this saved the day as far as desserts are concerned. The ice cream was really chocolaty and the semi freddo itself was really nice. I didn’t get a chance to try the pumpkin puree though. Nice idea though, matching pumpkin and chocolate together. There were no complaints coming from Miss Coco LV and she managed to finish the whole thing.



From my perspective Sarti was a pretty big let down. The surroundings are modern and really well done, but the service and some of the food weren’t quite up to scratch. I do recommend to go for the stuzzichini, maybe order a couple of cocktails and sit in their court yard and enjoy a few share plates with a bunch of friends, and then go somewhere else for dinner.

*It looks like Sarti is no longer in the top 100 restaurants of Australia. They were ranked 84 when the guide was released earlier this year, but the Gourmet Traveller website only have 98 entrants in the top 100. So at the moment it looks like Sarti and Lucio's are off the list. Stay tuned for more information....if I get any.