Fruity Inspiration

You guys are all aware by now that baking isn't really my bag. I will happily spend 3 days making a master stock, or painstakingly put together a 9 course degustation menu, but setting aside half an hour to make a cake just doesn't do it for me. Well, the Goddess of baking and sweet things must have aligned all the planets of something, because this week I had an idea for a cake recipe buzzing around in my head that just wouldn't go away. I took this as a sign from the universe that I should head to the kitchen and give this cake experiement a bit of a whirl.

I don't eat cake really - but when I do, my sweet thing of choice is lemon syrup polenta cake. I love the texture that the polenta has, and the tang of the lemon. Yum. My recipe idea is a bit of a variation on that type of cake, using fresh lime and lashings of passionfruit. I decided to add some almond meal to the equation, as well as using olive oil instead of butter. The result is a beautifully textured but very moist crumb and a sticky, tangy, fresh tasting syrup.

These cakes are lovely by themselves with a hot cuppa, but I think they would work really well as a do-ahead dessert. I'd serve them slightly warm with some clotted cream, creme anglaise or maybe some marscapone with some fresh lime rind folded into the mixture. You could also use those very small muffin tins and serve them as tiny sweet petit fours after dinner.

Sticky Passionfruit and Lime Polenta Cakes

As this was an experiment, it was all a bit free form. I used the quantities that I hoped would work, based roughly on the proportions I use when making normal muffins - and on the amount of almond meal and polenta I had in the pantry. Once I had that in mind as a starting point, I added some other ingredients and let my instincts take over. I was really happy with the result - the proportions worked a treat and I ended up with the texture I was hoping for. Dealing with the egg whites seperately really helped with this I think. I wasn't going to bother with the egg white thing, but it only took an extra two minutes and was worth it.

These cakes were fast to make and only take about 20 minutes to cook, so they aren't too much of a stretch for someone like me who doesn't usually have the patience or inclination for cake baking. Hell, I whipped up these on a Saturday morning while I stacked the dishwasher and sipped my morning coffee! Very do-able indeed.

You will need:
For the cake - 4 free range eggs, 1/2 cup caster sugar, 1/2 cup almond meal, 1/2 cup fine polenta, 1/2 cup plain flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 2 tablespoons olive oil, Juice and rind of 1 fresh lime, Pulp from about 3 passionfruit.

For the syrup - 1 cup caster sugar, Juice and rind of 1 fresh lime, Pulp of 2 passionfruit, 2 tablespoons water.

Method:  First, make the cake. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease your muffin tins if you are not using silicone tins like I did.

Separate the eggs and put the yolks in one mixing bowl and the whites in another. With an electric beater, whip the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Set aside. (Hint - it is always better to beat egg whites in a metal bowl, or a ceramic one as a second choice. Plastic bowls tend to retain grease and oil, which is the enemy of fluffy egg whites!)

Combine the half cup of caster sugar with the yolks and beat until the mixture is lighter in colour and increases slightly in volume.

To the egg yolk mixture, add the almond meal, polenta, plain flour, baking powder, olive oil, lime juice and rind. With a spatula, combine all of the ingredients.

Now gently fold a third of the egg white into the cake mixture. Put in the rest and fold in until combined. Don't be too heavy handed with the mixture.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin tins, remembering that these cakes do not rise a whole lot, so you can fill them almost to the top.

Bake at 1080C for 15-20 minutes. The cakes are cooked when they are slightly brown and the mixture springs bak a little when you touch the top of them.

While the cakes are cooking, put together the syrup - just combine all of the syrup ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer gently for a few minutes until the sugar is dissolved completely and the syrup thickens slightly.

When you remove the cakes from the oven, spoon over about half of the syrup while they are still warm. When you are finished, run a knife around the edges so that they don't stick to the pan. Spoon over the remaining syrup and allow the cakes to soak up the mixture.

Serve warm or cold with cream, marscapone or icecream. Or scoff them without the extras.

Makes 10-12 small cakes

******

Scoping something new - Kaya

Last week I scored an invite to try out Kaya - a new Izakaya Japanese restaurant/bar thanks to my talented graphic designer husband who created the artwork and logo for this new Oxford Street restaurant. The owners invited us as a thank you for the work that Andrew had done for them, and also to road test some of their dishes. Izakaya refers to a Japanese drinking establishment that also serves food. In Japan these types of eateries are most often frequented by people after work , serving drinks and food that is designed to be shared. Sort of a Japanese take on  the Spanish tapas concept.

Kaya has a large open kitchen, which lets you get close to the cooking action - something I always love. The small room had a nice intimate vibe, with lots of wood, textured walls and a warm, soft  yellow lighting arrangement that feels a million miles away from the tired, trash fest that is Oxford Street these days.

The Dining Room @ Kaya

We kicked off things with a Rhubarba - a delicious sake and vodka based rhubarb cocktail which was one of the nicest cocktails I've had.  The really fabulous flavour comes from a house made roasted rhubarb puree which makes you wish they served the stuff in a jug instead of a glass!

Being a sharing menu, we got to sample about 10 different dishes over the course of the evening and I will be sharing some of the highlights with you. We started with a serve of the ultimate Japanese comfort food, Okonomiyaki. Until now, I have only ever eaten the octopus version of this - which I adore, but this one was made with pork which worked really beautifully. I love the very savoury nature of Okonomiyaki, and this one was full of flavour. The traditional topping of sticky sauce and shaved bonito is an addictive combination.

Pork Okonomiyaki

For something with a lighter, fresher taste you can't go past the Sake steamed clams. The clams were plump and moist and cooked just right, and the delicious sauce had us wanting to lick the plate. The only down side to this dish was that there was nothing to mop up the rest of the sauce with so a lot of it was wasted.

Steamed Clams with Sake

A fried cuttlefish dish, with a punchy kick of chilli and salt was the perfect thing to accompany a second cocktail. A moreish, Kaya take on salt and pepper squid.

Fried Cuttlefish with Chilli and Salt

A super fresh, simple plate of sashimi followed, served with shredded daikon radish, wasabi and seaweed. The fish was succulent and clean tasting and beautifully prepared.

Kaya Sashimi

Kaya's version of Chicken Karaage - Japanese style fried chicken - was one of the dishes of the night, and the one that I think is destined to be one of their most popular. Super crispy, perfectly seasoned and moist and delicious in the centre, this chicken is seriously good. Served simply with Japanese mayo, it is a winner. One of the great things about it was the complete lack of oiliness in the chicken, even though it had been fried. Just so pleasant to eat. I think next time we visit we will be ordering a plate each!

Chicken Karaage

Pork belly is always a favourite, and Yakitori with pork belly, radish and spring onion was full of flavour and so, so moist it just fell off the skewer. I felt that the pork belly was just a tad too fatty, although it gets full marks for flavour. The pork had that great charcoal grill taste that you want in Yakitori.

Pork Yakitori

My favourite seafood is scallops, so I couldn't go past these dressed and roasted scallops on the shell. The scallops were plump and moist and cooked beautifully. So many places overcook them, and these were treated right. I would have liked a little more sauce, but apart from that - yum!

Roasted Scallops on the Shell

A hearty dish of grain fed beef on the rib, served with spinach satisfies the biggest carnivore. The dish is listed on the menu as being for two - it is huge, so we happily divided it between four. The meat is slow cooked, meltingly tender and the flavour was amazing.

Grain Fed Beef Rib

with Spinach

I really enjoyed my first excursion to Kaya. The thing that really stood out for me was that every dish possessed flavour in abundance. When you are tasting a number of dishes and only eating a few bites of each, it is important that you get the whole flavour and texture experience. It is not like eating a full plate of the same thing and tasting the dish "developing" as you work your way through it. First impressions count here. That is a rule I always apply when making canapes or any kind of smaller, shared dish - amp up everything flavour wise because your guests are potentially only getting one bite to experience it. Make it a good bite.

I got a chance to chat with some of the staff and found the service very good. Dishes also arrive quite fast. I was told that that the menu would have new items on an almost daily basis, depending on what produce was available and at it's best that day. A great  philospohy to have, and a way to keep things interesting for regular diners.

I think Kaya is a great addition to the Oxford Street strip, and we agreed that we would definitely head back there to try the other items on the menu - need to get some more of that Chicken Karaage and those divine Rhubarba cocktails!


Kaya Sydney
96 Oxford Street Darlinghurst
Ph:8354 0057
http://www.kayasydney.com/

Spring Lunch with Friends

Today I had the great pleasure of catching up with Miko, an old friend from Japan who I met when she came to my school as an exchange student when we were seventeen years old. Yes, that's twenty seven years ago folks -  a hell of a long time in anyone's language!  Well, through the magic of social media we found each other last year and when she announced she would be coming to Australia for a short holiday, we couldn't pass up the chance to get together. My first thought was to take Miko and her husband Nao out to lunch somewhere by the harbour, but she has always been such a great fan and supporter of Gourmet Goddess, that I thought I would cook for her instead.

I wanted to showcase some really excellent Australian produce, but with the lovely Spring weather, I also wanted the menu to be a bit of a celebration of the season. We were blessed with a beautiful warm Spring day, so location wise we ended up alternating between the back garden and the dining room. It soon became apparent that we all shared a love of food, and there were lots of conversations about cooking and ingredients and the produce from our respective countries. Definitely culinary cultural exchange. Drinks wise, we enjoyed a bottle of Penfolds Eden Valley Traminer which we bought back from our trip to South Australia last year, along with a few glasses of Gekkeikan Sake - just so that both countries were represented of course!

We started our lunch with an entree of handmade crab tortellini, served with a delicious light lemon, chive and butter sauce. I used herbs fresh from my garden and good quality salted Danish butter for the base of the sauce. I wanted to keep it really simple, so that the silky texture of the pasta and the great fresh crab flavour could shine through. I originally considered doing a larger version of this dish as the second dish on the menu, but decided to make Australian beef the focus of the main course.

 Crab Tortellini

with Lemon Chive Butter Sauce

 

I know that beef is extremely expensive in Japan, so I wanted to treat Miko and Nao to a really good peice of grass fed, aged, top quality Australian meat that they would not have the chance to eat at home. We made a special trip to the wonderful Victor Churchill  http://www.victorchurchill.com/  for some top notch beef fillet to serve our guests. I cooked the beef nice and rare, in one large fillet piece - searing it first in a hot pan, then transferring it to the oven for about 15 minutes, resting it for ten minutes and then slicing it into four thick steaks. I find cooking the beef like this keeps it super moist, especially if you are using a fillet piece. The meat was ridiculously tender and so flavoursome.

I served the beef in a very simple French style, with a crisp on the outside, soft in the centre potato galette, some gorgeous new Spring asparagus and a rich mushroom sauce, made with Swiss Brown, Porcini and White Button mushrooms. Instead of pouring the sauce over the beef, I served it seperately to allow people to put the sauce where they wanted to put it, and to also give the dish a really clean presentation. The beef was a huge hit with our guests.

Rare Grass Fed Beef

with Potato Galette, Three Mushroom Sauce and Spring Asparagus

For dessert, I decided on a semifreddo, but with a bit of a twist - using a yoghurt and cream base instead of the standard cream and egg yolk base. The result was a velvety, slightly tangy semifreddo which I made up in a flexible silicone muffin pan to make moulded individual serves. I flavoured the mixture with some beautiful golden Hunter Valley honey which we bought at a roadside farm stall on a weekend away recently. Really fragrant and beautiful, with just the right amount of sweetness for the cream and yoghurt.

I teamed the semifreddo with an almond and pistachio praline (I made a batch of this a few weeks ago and had a nice big jar full, ready to use) and some sweet Queensland pineapple, which I caramelised with brown sugar in a hot pan. I served the final dessert with edible flowers from the garden to go with the whole Spring theme.

Honey Yoghurt Semifreddo

with Almond and Pistachio Praline and Caramelised Pineapple

I really enjoyed putting this Spring lunch together and sharing it with our lovely visitors from Tokyo. Imagine my delight when Miko presented me with a parting gift of good quality Wasabi and a supply of Bonito flakes she had brought all the way from Japan for me. What a fabulous gift! I see a whole lot more Japanese inspired dishes in my future. We are planning on getting to Japan in our travels eventually, and it will be fantastic to have Miko and Nao to show us where all the good food and Sake is! It was fantastic to catch up after 27 years - and sharing a meal together was the perfect way to do it.

******

An Italian Classic

Heading home tonight I realised I had no plans as to what to make for dinner - a pretty rare occurence for me! Friday night after a long week, I wanted something with simple ingredients, tasty and satisfying - but also quick to throw together. I love pasta, but we don't tend to eat it very often at home, so I thought that for a treat I would make that Roman classic - Carbonara. It contains just a handful of ingredients, but is full of robust flavours and that gorgeous rich texture that is pretty irresistible.

Carbonara is usually made with either spaghetti or bucatini (thick spaghetti that is hollow in the centre) I chose bucatini, which is thicker and slightly chewier to eat than the more delicate spaghetti. There are a whole range of stories about this famous pasta dish - some say that it was named from the word carbonaro which means charcoal burner in Italian, and that it was a hearty dish made for coal miners. Another story goes that it is named for the specks of black pepper that make up part of the seasoning, that look like coal dust on the top. Regardless of where the name comes from, it is a fabulous dish that can be whipped up in just a few minutes.

This recipe is very simple and traditional. Just some cheese, fresh eggs and some diced speck or pancetta. Carbonara does not - I repeat -  not contain cream. Never, ever, ever! I have eaten some truly awful versions of this dish in my time. I'm having food flashbacks to horrible, wallpaper paste like concoctions containing pressed ham or mystery meat, usually served from a bain marie. Ewwwwwww! It beggars belief that anyone would try to "improve" on something that is already simple perfection just as it is. The Italians didn't feel the need to gussy up the dish by drenching it in cream and god knows what else - and as far as I'm concerned, neither should we.

Carbonara should be made just prior to serving - it is not a "do ahead" recipe, and it is not suitable for freezing either. Cook it fresh while everyone is at the table -  forks in hand, ready to dig in. Buon Appetito!

Bucatini Carbonara

 

You will need: 300g Spaghetti or Bucatini, 250g diced speck (or pancetta), 1 whole peeled clove garlic, 2 large fresh free range eggs, 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan, splash of olive oil, black pepper, salt.

Method: Whisk together the eggs, a pinch of salt, pepper and about half of the parmesan. Set aside.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the pasta and cook until just al dente. Be careful not to overcook it, as it will cook a little more when you create the sauce. Drain the pasta and set aside.

Working quickly, heat the oil in the pasta pot and cook the speck/pancetta and the garlic for about 5 minutes, until the meat starts to colour. Remove the whole garlic clove.

Add the drained pasta to the pot and toss the speck/pancetta through. Remove the pot from the heat and add the egg mixture, combining it quickly. The heat of the pasta will cook the egg mixture in a very short time. Add the rest of the parmesan, season with plenty of black pepper and serve right away.

Serves 2-4 people

******

A Weekend Food Diary

This weekend I had an old friend from overseas staying with us, and because we wanted some quality catch up time, our plan was to stay pretty close to home, cooking, enjoying a few glasses of wine and taking the rare opportunity to spend time together. I thought that I would share what we have been enjoying over the last few days, all cooked at home with the exception of a Sunday morning brunch trip to nearby Addison Road Markets in Marrickville, where we ate a very eclectic breakfast and picked up a few fresh ingredients to bring home on the way. All of the dishes were quite simple and easy to put together, but they were big on flavour. Looking back on the weekend, we have certainly enjoyed a diverse menu!

Friday:
My weekend food diary begins with a Japanese inspired Friday night dinner. A selection of shared dishes, served on some of the lovely Japanese ceramics we brought back from our recent trip. We began with crispy calamari and a creamy wasabi mayonnaise, and a dish of pickled radish, fennel and carrot for a tangy, crunchy contrast.

Crispy Calamari with Wasabi Mayonnaise

Radish, Fennel and Carrot Pickle

Next, a sticky, chilli coated stir fried tofu and snake bean dish, made extra delicious by the addition of dried shaved bonito. I love the very savoury dimension that dried bonito always adds to a dish - the ultimate seasoning I think! I used a medium firm tofu for this dish - it is quite forgiving as far as being handled goes and retains it's shape really well.

Chilli Tofu with Snakebeans and Bonito

For the final component of our meal, I took a beautiful smallish piece of beef fillet and coated it with a crushed mixture of fragrant black, white and red peppercorns. I seared it in a pan with a little oil, then transferred it to the oven for about 15 minutes to continue cooking. After resting it for another 15 minutes, I sliced it very thinly and served it drizzled with a simple teriaki sauce and topped it with sesame seeds. The texture of the meat was soft, moist and buttery - so tender you could pull it apart with your fingers. Washed down with a few glasses of Sake, our Japanese inspired dinner was a lovely way to kick off the weekend.

Fillet of Beef Teryaki with Sesame

Saturday:
It was a lovely sunny Saturday, so for lunch we decided to cook outside. We headed off to the fishmonger and bought some locally caught octopus as well as some fresh Australian prawns, which we brushed with a simple and very quickly thrown together olive oil, paprika and garlic marinade. We cooked the whole lot over coals in the back yard, and ate our seafood with crusty bread and a salad of mixed leaves which we drizzled with a small amount of fruity olive oil and some cherry balsamic. So simple, but a lovely lunch.

BBQ Prawns and Octopus with Mixed Leaf Salad

Now, there are unfortunately no pics of what we ate for dinner Saturday night - I got a bit trigger happy with delete function on my camera - so you will just have to imagine the twice cooked pork belly, served with a dollop of creamy mash and new seasons zucchini flowers, which I stuffed with a little feta cheese, parmesan and sorrel picked fresh from the garden. Rich, tasty and very delicious. I always get very excited when I start to see zucchini flowers appearing at the greengrocer - it means spring is on the way, and it is the perfect time to enjoy these delicate, beautiful vegetables.

Zucchini Flowers

Sunday:
Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny - perfect for being out and about - so we headed off to Addison Road Market in Marrickville to do a little bit of produce shopping and to find our breakfast. Unable to make up our minds on what to choose, we ended up trying a selection of dishes. Of course we can't visit the market without tasting the delicious hawker style roti - this time served with a rich and flavoursome lamb curry sauce. Surely this has to be one of the best breakfasts on the planet - one of my all time favourites anyway!

Roti with Lamb Curry Sauce

Delicious rustic style corn fritters were next, served with crispy bacon, homemade tomato relish, a pile of fresh herbs and a dollop of creamy aoli - yummo!

Corn Fritters

with Bacon, Homemade Tomato Relish and Aoili

In a nod to yum cha, we also shared a plate of freshly steamed dumplings - prawn and vegetables wrapped in a sticky rice wrapper, a BBQ pork bun and plenty of hot chilli sauce. I love the clean taste of a steamed dumpling, teamed with that eye watering chilli kick - certainly enough to wake you up on a Sunday morning!

BBQ Pork Bun and Steamed Dumplings

Wandering around the market, I picked up a few produce items, including organic, picked-that-morning broccolini, freshly baked ciabatta bread, crisp red radishes, pumpkin, King Edward potatoes, yellow heirloom carrots, a rack of organic lamb (from a local producer who was trying his product at the market for the first time) and some super soft and rich flavoured white rind cheese.

From Addison Road Market -

Organic vegebtables, Lamb, Ciabatta and Soft White Rind Cheese

When we arrived home from the market, we were definitely too full to eat lunch, so we had a glass of wine sitting in garden instead. I did however make a start on Sunday night dinner. I had gotten my hands on some ox cheek from our local butcher, which I was keen to slowly braise, hoping to bring out some of the amazing rich flavour that this cut of meat can deliver. It's funny, I see this ingredient on menus quite regularly, but until this week had not seen the raw product for sale at the butcher. When I saw it, I grabbed a couple of kilos right away.

Ox cheek requires very long, slow cooking - and we certainly weren't going anywhere - so it was a great time to make this hearty, comforting dish. I cooked it super simply - just seasoned and seared the meat, cooked a pile of onions, chopped carrot, parsley stalk and garlic in a little good quality olive oil and topped the whole lot with some plain beef stock before putting it in the oven for 5 hours at 120C. The resulting meat was buttery and melt in your mouth, with a dark, rich gravy. I think the secret to getting a really rich sauce is using lots of onions - I used sweet Spanish onions, which broke down during the cooking process to give a rich, caramelised flavour and body to the sauce.

Slow Braised Ox Cheek

with King Edward Potato Mash and Buttered Peas

I served the Ox cheek with a creamy mash made from the King Edward potatoes I bought at the market, and buttered peas. Nothing fancy, but hearty and full of flavour. Because the meat is very rich, we only needed small portions, so the leftover meat will be frozen, to be topped with golden puff pastry sometime in the future and reinvented as a delicious pie. A great way to have something special after work that can be thrown together quickly - all the hard work is pretty much done. I was really pleased with my first attempt at Ox cheek and will definitely keep my eyes open for it at the butcher. It wasn't expensive either - although I'm wondering if it will go the way of lamb shanks - something that butchers would almost give away a few years ago, and that now commands a top price due to a sudden fashion for that particular cut of meat. Time will tell.

So, that was the weekend in food.

And then.....
Next weekend we are heading up to my lovely in laws on the Central Coast for a Sunday family lunch, and have decided to make a weekend of it - driving up on Saturday via the Hunter Valley Region. The plan is to explore and enjoy some of the culinary delights of the area on Saturday, spend the night at The Crowne Plaza Hunter Valley and then drive across to the coast Sunday morning. The last time we were there, we discovered a farm that sold the most incredible tasting non homogenised milk, and we are taking an esky this time, so that we can stock up. We also purchased some gorgeous quality free range eggs (most turned out to have double yolks) from the same farmer, so we will be sure to pay him a visit again. Will have to do some research this week on what else we might want to check out - I hear there are cheese producers and all kinds of other food delights in the area, so there will be no shortage of things to do. Will be sure to pack my camera and my notebook, so I can share the highlights with you all.

Have a delicious week!