The End of a Decade, 31 Dec 2009

I normally hold a pre-Christmas party for friends but this year, with so many people having already left for their holidays, I have given it a miss. So I toyed with the idea of having a New Year’s Eve gathering for those of us left in Sydney instead, but it turns out many people already have plans. A friend has since invited us out for an end of year meal, although Monsieur Poisson and I were quite prepared to spend the evening at home as per usual.

As the year and decade both draw to a close, it is a most opportune time to reflect on significant personal events – completing university, forging a career, farewelling said career, getting married, and many dramas in between these events along the way. This past year has proven to be a huge learning experience in the things that are important to me in life: family, loyalty, honesty, responsibility, integrity, love, respect and friendship. And with these aspects firmly defined so that they have a place or will have a place in my life, I feel better equipped to face the next decade as someone’s wife and hopefully someone’s mother.

Just around the corner I will be starting a new career in a field related to my past but in a role somewhat different to what I am accustomed. The prospect is exciting, promising and frightening all at once. This will also have a direct impact on my blogging habits thus far – if you don’t see anything new here for a while, please be patient and be assured that this baby will not be silent for too long an extended period!

As well as embarking on a new career, I am going to challenge myself to make use of recipe cards sent to me by the always lovely Anna. The set of fifty cards were a free offer from The Age and feature recipes by Jill Dupleix. (Was there a similar offer from Sydney Morning Herald that I missed?) Inspired by My Food Trail’s Cookbook Challenge, I aim to cook from one recipe card per week so that I’ll have worked through all fifty of them by the end of the year. Otherwise I fear these recipe cards will just look cute amongst my cookbooks and go to waste whilst gathering dust. Ambitious? Slightly. Somewhat mad? Always!

And what better way to end the year than with an award! I recently received an ‘Over The Top!’ award from Foraging Otaku and once again feel very humbled that I have been chosen amongst the throng of quality food blogs that are around. Although I’m completely puzzled what qualifies this blog as ‘over the top’, I’m happy to receive any awards as long as they’re given in a positive sense! Click here to see whose esteemed company I shared, and have a read through Forager’s posts while you’re there – you get a real sense of how grounded a person she is.

According to the rules of this award, I must provide readers with the answers to the thirty-five questions below in one word. I also must thank my award-giver for this fun award (Thank you once again, Forager!) and grant six of my favourite bloggers this award, then give them the heads-up that they have been nominated.

So after much thinking, choosing, reading, more thinking and reviewing, here are my nominated six:

• Kitchen Butterfly
• missklicious
• FoodiePop
• pass the peas
• Panda & Cakes
• penguin says…feed me! 

Again, as far as I can tell, none of the above have been previous recipients of the ‘Over The Top!’ award. Congratulations, and now it’s your turn to pass it on and answer these intriguing questions! Here are my answers:

1. Where is your cell phone? Nearby
2. Your hair? Abundant
3. Your mother? Dependent
4. Your father? Absent
5. Your favourite food? French
6. Your dream last night? Weird
7. Your favourite drink? Juices
8. Your dream/goal? Contentment
9. What room are you in? Study
10. Your hobby? Food-blogging!
11. Your fear? Disappointment
12. Where do you want to be in six years? Domesticated
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. Something that you aren’t? Pushover
15. Muffins? Yes…?
16. Wish list item? Handbags
17. Where did you grow up? Sydney
18. Last thing you did? This!
19. What are you wearing? Pyjamas
20. Your TV? Off
21. Your pets? None
22. Friends? Integral
23. Your life? Evolving
24. Your mood? Positive
25. Missing someone? Secret
26. Vehicle? Invisible
27. Something you’re not wearing? Jewellery
28. Your favourite store? Book
29. Your favourite colour? Depends…
30. When was the last time you laughed? Now
31. Last time you cried? Forgotten
32. Your best friend? Fishy
33. One place that I go to over and over? Dreams
34. One person who emails me regularly? Everyone
35. Favourite place to eat? Kitchen 

happy new year & happy eating!

Party Food

With Christmas only just out of our systems and the new year creeping up on us, we are most definitely in the midst of party season. Monsieur Poisson and I had the fortune of being invited to Ms Macau and Mr Holden’s place for a small pre-Christmas get-together. I offered to bring along some food – I don’t know why, but I like to have an excuse to cook – and decided to go the dessert option. I also went against better cooking judgement and wanted to try a new recipe with ingredients that I had never dealt with before, when I am a person who normally never lives life dangerously.

A couple of weeks prior, I had spotted some wonderfully celebratory-looking jellies on The Way It Crumbles and filed the recipe aside thinking it would be a great way to make use of the bottle of moscato that I had in the fridge. When the call for a house party came, this is the first thing I thought of. The recipe looked pretty easy and all I needed to get was powdered gelatine…

Perhaps because it was close to Christmas, I had trouble finding gelatine – even after searching at two supermarkets. When I finally got my hands on some gelatine, I re-read the recipe and started to fret – what is meant by allowing gelatine ‘to bloom’? I had only ever played with packet jelly crystals before, never gelatine in any form itself. Google thankfully provided some answers but then I started to worry about whether the jellies would set as I was going to vary a few things in the recipe right from the word go.

There was delicious food on offer at the house party, including plenty of barbecued meats provided by the hosts and other foods brought along by guests. More importantly, there was relaxed conversation and general lazing about.

And the jellies had thankfully set and turned out quite well in the end. The bubbles were much smaller than what I’d expected, probably due to using a not very bubbly wine, but still they provided a pleasant tingle when the jelly slid across the tongue. My only complaint lay with the ‘froth’ that had set on the top – not visually displeasing, but a little funny in texture to eat.

So, what are your end of year celebration plans? And do you have any tried-and-tested staple party food tricks?

Red Moscato Jellies (makes 6-8 serves)

(adapted from The Way It Crumbles)

Ingredients:

·         150mL cold water

·         2 tbs powdered gelatine

·         750mL moscato or other sparkling wine

·         100mL Ribena (or other cordial)

·         ½ cup caster sugar

·         frozen raspberries, thawed

Method:

1. Place 6 or 8 glasses (I used plastic cups) in the freezer for 15 minutes. In the meantime, place water in a small bowl and sprinkle gelatine over the top whilst whisking continuously with a fork to avoid any bits clumping together. Set aside for a few minutes and it will start to ‘bloom’ – the bowl of water will begin to set and look yellowy and slightly lumpy like a sea sponge.
2. Pour 150mL of the wine into a small saucepan and reseal the bottle for the time being. Add the cordial and sugar to the saucepan and place over a low heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, taking care NEVER to let the mixture boil. Remove from heat and let cool until warm.
3. Add the gelatine mixture to the pan, whisking continuously until all dissolved and no clumps of gelatine are present.
4. Divide liquid evenly between chilled glasses and throw a few raspberries in each. Slowly pour remaining wine equally into the glasses to minimise frothing. Place in the freezer for 20 minutes, before transferring to the fridge to set overnight. 

happy new year & happy eating!

Boxing Day, 2009

Food portions on Christmas Day were pretty good this year and I didn’t actually have any cooked leftovers apart from a couple of small, crusty bread rolls. What I did have left over, rather, were excess raw ingredients that I had purchased thinking I needed to prepare larger portions of food. So these bits and pieces became a pizza dinner on Boxing Day; pizza being a great way to use up miscellaneous foods.

Having purchased a pizza stone for cheap earlier in the year, I now no longer use store-bought pizza bases or flatbreads as base substitutes. It is a slightly more time-consuming process having to roll out the dough, but it is definitely not laborious, especially when I have a dough hook attachment on my stand mixer to do the ‘kneading’ for me.

The bread rolls were made into garlic bread by cutting them into segments, but not quite all the way through to the base. Then it was just a matter of wodging in thin slices of butter (real butter here, please) and crushed garlic mixed with some dried herbs and black pepper in between the sections of bread. Wrapped up in foil, I threw them in the bottom of the oven whilst one of the pizzas was being blasted above.

Pizza toppings and the amount of cheese used are entirely open to choice. I use whatever grated cheese I happen to have at the time and my ‘pizza sauce’ is equal parts tomato paste and tomato passata seasoned with salt, pepper and a sprinkling of dried mixed herbs. On Boxing Day, I had a potato to hand so that became a potato and mixed herb pizza – this one doesn’t require pizza sauce, but merely a thin brushing of olive oil which makes for a crisper base. Some cherry tomatoes which didn’t make it into one of the Christmas Day salads were paired with frozen corn and leftover Christmas ham on another. Mistress joined us again for dinner and kindly brought over a tub of tabouleh, albeit proffered from a friend’s barbecue earlier in the day!

I threw a few prawns tossed with chopped chilli and some haloumi I had kicking about in the fridge on a third pizza, whilst the final one was a half-half of excess toppings from the other pizzas. There is, of course, no reason why you can’t make four pizzas all topped with the same ingredients but, for me, variety really is the spice of life.

Pizza Dough (makes 4 medium-sized bases)

(adapted from Taste.com.au)

Ingredients:

• 185mL warm water
• 7g sachet dried yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 1½ - 2 cups plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 2 tbs oil 

Method:

1. Mix water, yeast, sugar and salt together in a small cup with a fork. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place to bubble for 5 minutes. (Don’t turn your back on the yeast for too long or you may end up with an overflowing volcano of bubbling yeast! If it doesn’t bubble at all then you’ll need to try again with another sachet of yeast.) 

2. Sift 1½ cups of flour into a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Add yeast mixture and oil. Mix the dough by hand or dough hook attachment until it comes together in a soft ball. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead by hand, or using the dough hook on a stand mixer, until elastic, adding more flour if the dough feels too sticky.
3. Divide the dough into four balls and roll each out on a floured surface to desired thickness. Prick all over with a fork before adding pizza toppings. Bake for around 5-7 minutes at the hottest setting on your oven (around 270°C on mine) until toppings are cooked and cheese, if using, is bubbling. Remove from oven and let sit for a couple of minutes before slicing to serve. 

happy cooking!

Christmas Day, 2009

With Mother and Mother-in-law, multiple friends and other relatives all overseas for Christmas this year, Monsieur Poisson and I knew we were in for a quiet affair. While Ms Physio came over for lunch and Mistress joined us for dinner, it still only took the headcount for each meal to a grand total of three. You would assume that I would keep things simple, with only so few people to entertain, but this is Christmas we’re talking about here and I’m not sure I am ever capable of keeping things simple when it comes to cooking for others.

Because Christmas was never celebrated in my family as a child, I’m a bit freeform when it comes to ‘Christmas’ food. I have yet to serve a whole roast bird, as I rarely have many people to feed, but I do usually roast a few cuts of chicken instead. This year I decided to make a rolled chicken roast. Had I ever made one before? No. Did I know for how long or at what temperature to roast it? Er, no. And did I even know how to tie a rolled roast? Um, again, no. But, as with most things these days, the internet is the beholder of the answers to many a mysterious question!

The chicken was paired with many roast vegetables (I almost ran out of room in my baking dish), a couple of salads, some bread rolls and a few slices of deli-bought ham. Dessert was profiteroles made from a trusty packet mix (I know – tsk, tsk! – I have yet to attempt making them from scratch), but not quite following the packet instructions, served filled with vanilla ice-cream and a drizzling of a cream-free chocolate sauce (for those times when I want chocolate sauce when there is no cream to hand). Ms Physio unfortunately missed out on these as I didn’t remember them until after I had served dinner. (PS. Thank you again for your gift – I was very much covered in glitter after opening it!)

Christmas dinner consisted of reheated leftovers from lunch which, thankfully, Mistress didn’t mind. Some of the excess cooking ingredients from Christmas Day then made it into our pizza dinner on Boxing Day, but more about that in a post to follow.

I hope you had a wonderful time sharing food, conversation, laughter and good times with whomever you chose to share Christmas. It was the very first Christmas for this here humble blog. It was also Monsieur Poisson and my first Christmas together as husband and wife, so it was definitely a special time for us.

Rolled Chicken Roast with Chorizo and Pine Nuts (makes approx 9 pieces to serve 3 adults)

Ingredients:

• 3 large chicken thigh fillets
• 1 chorizo sausage (not the dried type)
• ½ cup fresh breadcrumbs (I process leftover bread crusts and keep them in a container in the freezer for when needed)
• ¼ onion, finely chopped
• ¼ cup pine nuts, toasted (optional)
• butcher’s/cotton string 

Method:

1. Remove the chorizo sausage from its casing and place in a medium sized bowl. To this, add the breadcrumbs, onion and pine nuts (if using). Feel free to add any fresh or dried herbs and mash the lot together with a fork until evenly combined. Set aside. 

2. Lay chicken thigh fillets on a chopping board with the smooth-side (the side where the skin was) down. Trim any straggly bits of meat so that you have relatively flat fillets – you may find that you have to butterfly open thicker parts of the fillets. Flatten the fillets with a meat mallet or the back or a meat cleaver until fairly uniform in thickness.
3. Lay down a large sheet of plastic wrap and arrange the fillets smooth-side down, overlapping slightly into a rectangular shape. Arrange the chorizo stuffing lengthways on top of the chicken fillets, leaving about a 1 inch margin from one of the longer sides. 

4. Using the plastic wrap, roll up fillets to enclose the stuffing into a log shape and twist both ends of the plastic wrap like a bonbon to seal. (Note that the plastic wrap should NOT be rolled into the chicken log itself.) Wrap in a double layer of foil and place in the freezer to firm up for easier handling (anywhere from 1-2 hours). 

5. Take chicken roll from freezer and remove layers of wrap. Tie up chicken with string as per guidance in this video. If not roasting straight away, rewrap in plastic wrap and foil before placing in the fridge.
6. To roast, preheat oven to 200°C. Bring chicken roll to room temperature and brush surface with a little oil before roasting for 50-60 minutes. Remove from oven and rest 10 minutes, loosely covered with foil, before untying and slicing into thick pieces to serve. 

I roasted pumpkin and carrot pieces alongside the chicken for the same amount of time, corn for around 30 minutes, zucchini pieces for around 20 minutes and asparagus for around 10 minutes. All vegetables were tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper prior to cooking. The cooking times given for the chicken and vegetables are all approximate as they were quite forgiving to being slightly overcooked or kept warm in the oven whilst covered with a layer of foil.

My Potato Salad

Ingredients:

• Chat potatoes, halved or quartered depending on size
• hard boiled eggs, sliced
• frozen peas
• bacon, roughly chopped
• mayonnaise
• seeded mustard 

Method:

Mix together cooked potato, egg slices, cooked peas and cooked bacon. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix thoroughly with mayonnaise and mustard to taste. Chill prior to serving. Amounts of ingredients required will depend on how many people you are feeding and personal tastes.

Cheat’s Profiteroles with Chocolate Sauce (makes about 25 profiteroles)

Ingredients:

• 1 pack of ‘White Wings’ profiterole packet mix (you only need the pastry mix, not the custard mix nor the chocolate chips)
• 2 eggs
• 165mL water 

For the chocolate sauce:

• 125mL water
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• 60g unsalted butter
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 150g dark chocolate, chopped 

Method:

1. Mix together profiterole ingredients (can be done by hand) until well combined. Preheat oven 220°C and line a baking tray. Shape rounds of batter using a two-spoon method, or pipe 25 profiteroles of about 1 inch in diameter 1 inch apart on the tray. 

2. Bake for 15 minutes before reducing heat to 190°C and baking a further 20 minutes. Remove tray from oven and let profiteroles sit for 10 minutes before splitting in half with a knife to release any steam. 

3. Prepare chocolate sauce by stirring water, cocoa powder, butter and brown sugar together in a small saucepan over low heat until combined and just starting to boil. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate pieces until melted, smooth and glossy.
4. To serve, fill profiteroles with small scoops of vanilla ice-cream and arrange on a plate. Spoon over as much chocolate sauce as desired and enjoy! 

merry Christmas, happy cooking, happy sharing & happy eating!

The night before Christmas, 2009

I don’t think I ever believed in Santa Claus. Sad, I know. As much as I would have liked to believe there was a jolly bearded man in a red, velveteen suit who brought people gifts every year, I was a realist from early on and my parents never encouraged my imagination otherwise. For starters we didn’t have a chimney (because, you know, how else would Santa get in?) and then, being Asian and not of any particular religious denomination, we didn’t celebrate Christmas in any way so there were no gifts to be found under the tree.

Oh, but yes, the irony was that there was a tree! (Not the one pictured to the left – that’s a current tree.) And a tall one at that, which I enjoyed prettifying with the same set of decorations year after year but never was a wrapped gift to be found underneath it. It smelt of cheap plastic – and I will never forget the first time I smelt a real, pine Christmas tree (albeit in Asia) many years later – but it was still our tree, which bore many sparkly adornments and only made a limited annual appearance.

So Christmas for me now, as an adult, means all things shiny and sparkly. Although highly commercialised, it is nice that there is a time of year where people do at least think about what to give others. The husband and I have never been big on giving each other gifts, choosing instead to share food outings for celebrations. As there is nothing open at Christmas, it serves as an excuse to prepare something celebratory myself and a chance to try something a little different from the usual and get a little bit fancy.

But back to gifts. I received a lovely package from the ever-thoughtful Anna which suits my interests perfectly. Every girl needs pretty pink, polka-dot cupcake cases and a purple shoe bag with pink embroidery in the shape of a stiletto! I will definitely make use of those paper cases, so keep your eyes peeled for their appearance here soon. Thanks again, darling!

Not specifically for Christmas, I received souvenirs from Mistress from her recent trip to Japan which were, no surprise, food-related items. A tin of M&Ms (I love tins!), a mobile phone strap from the Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum and cute-as Japanese chopsticks – a pair for my husband and one for myself. Thank you, you know me well.

And lastly, again not specifically for Christmas, my husband got me a book that I had lusted after ever since finding out it had finally been translated into English. Although it didn’t come gift-wrapped, I have purposely left it in its shrink wrap to ‘open’ on Christmas day. Can you guess what it is?

As Mademoiselle Délicieuse, this is the only book it could be! I may like French things, but my French language skills don't stretch that far.

It will be a quiet one this year with just the husband and myself, whilst various family members are holidaying overseas. I hope Christmas finds you spending time with the people that matter, rather than having spent too much money and battling those in the stores. Be grateful for these people and the gifts which they bring, especially those which cannot be bought, wrapped or bagged.

merry Christmas, happy cooking, happy sharing & happy eating!

Sydney Food Bloggers Picnic, 13 Dec 2009

♫ If you go down to the park today

You’re sure of a big surprise.

If you go down to the park today

You’d better go in disguise.

For ev’ry blogger that ever there was

Will gather there for certain, because

Today’s the day of the Sydney Food Bloggers Picnic! ♫

Grab Your Fork and Chocolatesuze sent out the call (although not in a musical fashion as I’ve depicted above) and about fifty Sydney Food Bloggers responded. With me not knowing anyone, I had natural reservations and the usual social anxieties about attending. But of course, I reasoned with myself, if I never attend these gatherings then I will forever not know anyone. I needn’t have worried because I discovered that Sydney’s food bloggers are a friendly lot and I was not left for a single moment without someone to talk to.

We were asked to bring along either a sweet or savoury plate for sharing, and at least one zealous blogger brought along both. So what does a food bloggers’ food spread look like?

And what do Sydney’s food bloggers look like?

Sydney Food Bloggers Anonymous! (Photo above courtesy of The Heart Of Food.) If you look really hard you may just be able to spot me.

So having decided to attend, I was faced with the question of what to bring. Buoyed by my recent macaron success, I thought these would be the perfect choice but in the process of making them the night before I suffered epic macaron fail! I knew they weren’t going to turn out from the moment I went to pipe them as the batter was just too stiff and sticky. What I ended up with was a batch of chewy, crackly-topped, chocolate almond biscuits instead.

While it would have been quite acceptable to take these along, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted happy food but these poor guys just looked so dejected! So, on the morning of the picnic I instead made a batch of sunny, bite-sized lemon cakes and sprinkled some salt flakes on them to remind me of those lemon sandwich biscuits. This is a great staple recipe for people like as it doesn’t call for milk – one of the things which ‘normal’ people constantly have in their fridge that I don’t. It is also highly adaptable for use with other citrus juices and the addition of poppyseeds or dollops of citrus curd. The resulting cakes are damp and almost syrupy, and can be made as one large cake baked in a round tin at the same temperature for about 45 minutes.

The game of the day was Kris Kringle that allowed for the ‘stealing’ of already unwrapped gifts. I cannot remember who stole my original gift of stainless steel kitchen soap, but what I ended up with was a chocolate calculator and a dark chocolate Kit-Kat. Thank you to my unknown gifter (I’ve already worked my way through the Kit-Kat) and I hope my ‘theif’ is making good use of the soap!

With all the food on offer, there was bound to be leftovers to be swapped and taken home at the end of the day. I came away with gingerbread from Penguin Says Feed Me, melting moments from Pass The Peas and raspberry ripple cupcakes from I Am Obsessed With Food.

I also took home lots of faces and real names to put to blog names. Thank you once again to both Helen and Suze for organising everything for such a momentous gathering. Even newbies like me felt most welcomed.

Mini Lemon Cakes (makes 24-36 depending on how high you fill the tray cavities)

(apologies as I’ve had this recipe so long that I can’t remember where it comes from)

Ingredients:

• 100g unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tbs finely grated lemon rind
• ¾ cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup  self-raising flour, sifted
• ¼ cup plain flour, sifted
• 125mL lemon juice
• salt flakes (optional) 

Method:

1. Preheat oven 180°C and lightly grease a mini-muffin tray.
2. Beat butter with lemon rind and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Stir in the flours in two batches, alternating with the lemon juice.
4. Divide batter across the holes of the tray and top each with a few salt flakes (if using). Bake for 8-10 minutes until cakes start to shrink away from the sides – the tops will NOT brown.
5. Remove tray from oven and let sit for a few minutes before transferring cakes to cool on a wire rack. Take care when doing this as the cakes will still be slightly adhered to the tin – a toothpick works wonders in helping to lever them out.
6. Cakes can be stored in an airtight container and are best consumed within five days. 

merry Christmas, happy cooking & happy eating!

Hurricane’s Darling Harbour, 24 Oct 2009

On a weekend where both Weirdo and Ms Sourdough were in Sydney, we made a visit to Weirdo’s newfound favourite haunt of Hurricane’s Grill, Darling Harbour. Partly because of his low carb diet at the time, he seemed to have been eating here on what seemed like a weekly basis. Hurricane’s baby back ribs at both Darling Harbour and Bondi are finger-lickin’-good, so Monsieur Poisson and I were more than happy to accept an invitation to dinner.

Although it’s only late October, it is still quite sunny when we walk in. We extend the mood of the slanted light rays and long shadows by ordering a jug of sangria to share. It’s a drink that just evokes lazy summer days but I do have one small problem with it – how do you get to the fruit bits without having to stick your fingers into the glass? Perhaps the bits aren’t meant to be eaten but I quite like the slightly tart crunch of the apple pieces against the sweet red wine.

We order a serve of garlic mushrooms to share and I love these here as they are pungently garlic-breath-inducing! As soon as the dish is placed on the table, that unmistakable odour of garlic wafts up to you and begs you to eat those small, bulbous capped button mushrooms. And then, there is absolutely no stopping! You know there’s not going to be any kissing at the end of this evening as we’ve also ordered onion rings to share. An enormous bowl arrives all battered and brown and reminds me of those we enjoyed at The Counter. We probably only manage to finish half of this massive bowl by the time we leave.

The complimentary bread here appears on the bill at the end of the meal under the description of ‘brown roll’. It is an awfully banal way to describe what is a soft and sweet oat-topped bun that is served with one of my favourite brands of butter – Lurpak, from Denmark.

Weirdo and Ms Sourdough order baby back ribs to share, whereas Monsieur Poisson and I go for the ‘Steak and Ribs Combo’. There is a token bowl of steamed vegetables for us all to balance out our meat consumption but none of us manage to finish the chips that accompany said meat. However, the steak is beautifully charred but cannot beat the sticky, saucy, tender tastiness that is the ribs.

I can’t remember about anyone else but I, for one, most definitely could be seen licking my fingers unashamedly in satisfaction. A sure sign of a good meal enjoyed.

Hurricane’s Grill, Darling Harbour

Shops 433-436, Level 2 of Harbourside Shopping Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney NSW

Tel: (02) 9211 2210

Opening Hours:  7 days  12pm-3pm (lunch)

                                    dinner from 5:30pm

happy eating!

What to do with leftover buttercream?

This was the question I was posed with after my macaron-making venture. It was my own fault, you see, as I had overestimated the amount of buttercream with which I needed to fill my macarons by making double the amount of filling. As a result, I had about half the buttercream left over but luckily it keeps.

I decided that I did not want to make macarons again (for the time being anyway), nor did I want to make cupcakes. So after trawling through my collection of recipes, I decided on making a foolproof coffee loaf but to sex it up a bit so it resembled my husband’s favourite dessert – tiramisu.

This cake is incredibly easy to make and can be mixed by hand. Then it’s just a matter of baking it, splitting it, brushing on some coffee liqueur and decorating with buttercream. Any cracks or splits are easily concealed by the icing so inconsistencies in appearance are easily disguised. I had forgotten how crumby this cake’s texture is, so splitting it proved to not be an easy exercise. It would probably work well as cupcakes baked for roughly 15 minutes at the same oven temperature, and decorated on the tops only.

I don’t happen to be a big fan of icing (I know, I know, what is wrong with me?!) so I was happy with the amount of buttercream I had to hand. However if you like your icing spread on more thickly, there’s nothing to stop you doubling the buttercream quantites below to make your cake extra indulgent.

Tiramisu Cake

Ingredients:

• 125g unsalted butter
• 1 cup raw sugar
• ½ cup milk
• 2 tbs instant coffee
• 1 ½ cups self-raising flour
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tbs coffee liqueur or essence (I used Tia Maria)
• cocoa powder and/or grated chocolate to decorate (I used a crumbled Cadbury Flake)

For the buttercream:

• 75g unsalted butter
• 1 cup icing sugar mixture
• 1 tbs coffee liqueur or essence (optional – you can leave the icing plain if you prefer)

Method:

1. For the buttercream, cream together butter with icing sugar mixture before mixing through liqueur/essence (if using). Set aside but do NOT chill in the fridge. (You will end up with a solid block of buttercream otherwise.)
2. Preheat oven to 160°C. Line the base and sides of a loaf tin with non-stick baking paper.
3. Melt butter with sugar, milk and coffee in a small saucepan on medium to low heat.
4. Sift flour into a large bowl, add eggs and mix to combine. Add melted butter mixture and mix thoroughly to combine. You will end up with a sticky gooey batter.
5. Pour batter into the prepared loaf tin. Bake for about 40 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to sit in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
6. When cake is cool enough to handle, split into two layers horizontally. Brush the top of each layer with coffee liqueur while the cake is still warm. Allow cake to cool completely before icing.
7. Spread half the buttercream on the bottom layer of cake. Replace top layer of cake before icing the top of this as well. Sides of cake may be iced as well if there is excess buttercream. (Any leftover buttercream can be kept chilled in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.)
8. Dust top of cake with sifted cocoa powder and decorate with grated chocolate if desired. Cake is best consumed within 4-5 days.

happy cooking!

Azuma Kushiyaki, 23 Oct 2009

I previously mentioned that Monsieur Poisson and I had a lot of trouble getting into Azuma Kushiyaki to try their Sugar Hit in October, and it was only by making a reservation for dinner that we managed to extend our stay into the allocated timeslot. But of course it wasn’t just the lure of pretty desserts that drew us into coming here – we had heard many good things about the food and especially their specialty of barbequed skewers. So in the name of our anniversary we headed there for dinner, with a view to casually slip in a Sugar Hit dessert.

Upon first entering the restaurant you are met with neat rows of bottles of sake and wine glasses as well as the unmistakable aroma of barbequed meats. The interior is brightly lit with homely-looking tables and friendly service. I am almost disappointed when we received fairly standard chopstick rests, as opposed to the ‘interesting’ ones reported by other bloggers.

We glance down the extensive list of kushiyaki as well as the rather large laminated menu, and my eye is immediately caught by ‘Crispy chicken skin’. Monsieur Poisson actually mis-orders it as ‘crispy skin chicken’ but the waitress is not phased and our order arrives as what we intend.

They look like thick triangles of blistery deep-fried pastry. The lightly battered portions of skin are very well drained of oil and are wonderful with a squirt of lemon juice. We also have fun dipping them in the colourful flavoured salts alongside – there’s curry salt, green tea salt and sansho pepper.

Next to arrive is Monsieur Poisson’s lusted after uni sashimi, which are presented on shiso leaves resting on a bed of ice chips. The uni pieces are on the large side and although there are pieces of differing shades of colour, the taste is the same regardless. The uni is very fresh, sweet and not too mushy; and this proves to be the first time that I actually enjoy eating it.

This is followed by a flurry of plates as our kushiyaki arrive and we almost run out of room on our small table for two. Firstly we have quail eggs which are a glossy dark soy colour and I only wish there was more of them. The ‘Shiitake with minced prawn’ are perfectly shaped and are cooked just enough so that the prawn meat hasn’t started to shrink away from the sides.

The ‘Wild scallop with soy and homemade garlic oil’ skewer is Monsieur Poisson’s choice. I am surprised by the appearance of squared-off pieces of scallop when they arrive but assume it has something to do with ease of threading/cooking. They’re smoky without being over-charred with the garlic oil adding just that bit of bite. Our ‘Wagyu tongue’ skewer and ‘Chicken giblets with soy and butter’ arrive on the same plate, with the beef tongue expectedly juicy and the chicken giblets being squeakily crunchy with just a hint of butter flavour.

As chawanmushi has become our recent love, we order it when we see it on the menu here. It is served to our table on its own heat mat but without a spoon. I remove the lid to inspect it whilst Monsieur Poisson attempts to procure a spoon, and notice that it is lighter in colour than the previous one we had in Brisbane. Again, it is sublimely smooth but this time with hidden treasures of shiitake, prawns, chicken, spinach and gingko nuts.

And continuing on with my mentaiko obsession, I order an ‘Onigiri with mentaiko’. The rice ball is a compact shape that is easy to eat but the mentaiko is a little different to what I’ve had in the past by still having its ‘sheath’ intact. It makes for a slightly chewier experience but smokily salty nonetheless.

Our final dish is one that is again ordered to honour Dr King’s love of rice. It is the ‘Salmon zosui’, described in the menu as Japanese risotto, but arrives bearing resemblance to a Chinese dish known as ‘pau faan’ (泡飯) which has cooked rice mixed into soup.

This dish is served in a mini cast iron pot and contains generous pieces of salmon which are thankfully not overly fishy. An egg has been broken over the hot stock so that it is flash-cooked and floating ethereally on top of the rice when it arrives. It is warming and soul-restoring with plenty of chopped chives sprinkled on top.

And then came our slightly sneaky way of enjoying Azuma Kushiyaki’s Sugar Hit for dessert. The meal in itself was great and was only made even better by their spectacular Sugar Hit, as well as the chocolate mousse Monsieur Poisson enjoyed from their standard dessert menu.

Azuma Kushiyaki

Ground floor of Regent Place, 501 George St (near cnr Bathurst St), Sydney NSW

Tel: (02) 9267 7775

Opening Hours:  Mon-Fri  lunch from 12pm

                                    dinner from 6pm

                        Sat  dinner only from 6pm

                        Sun  dinner only from 5:30pm

happy eating!