Sunday, October 30, 2011

Twin Peaks Cherry Pie

Halloween = best time or best time for a Twin Peaks themed morning tea? We all dressed up for the occasion (most of us anyway) and I teamed up with my friend Serena to make this pie, served with some damn good coffee.

Twin Peaks Cherry Pie

Cherry Pie

Pastry:
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
zest and juice of 1 lemon
400g unsalted butter, at room temperature (I used 350g)
200g caster sugar
600g plain flour
pinch of salt
brown sugar for sprinkling

Filling:
1.6kg of bottled cherries, or 4 x 400g pitted cherries, or 2kg of fresh cherries pitted (I used about 1.2kg of pitted Morello cherries)
300g raspberries (I used frozen)
zest and juice of 1 lemon
100g icing sugar
50g cornflour


To make the pastry, mix 2 of the eggs with the 2 egg yolks, vanilla extract and lemon zest and juice. Reserve the third egg for an egg wash later on.

Using a mixer, combine the butter and sugar. Beat until pale and creamy. Add the egg mixture a litle at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

Sift on the flour and salt, beating slowly until the mixture just comes together as a ball. Don't overmix or the dough will be tough. Shape the pastry into a ball, cover with plastic wrap, and refridgerate for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 170C and grease a tart tin (or don't, if it's non-stick - the pastry was plenty buttery on its own, even with the reduction in the butter I used). Reserve a third of the pastry in the fridge for the topping. Roll out the rest on a lightly floured work surface to about 0.5cm thickness.

Lift the pastry on to the prepared tart tin and ease it in to the edges. Refridgerate for 20 minutes.

(Let me pause for a moment here to share a tip I learnt from - YES - Junior Masterchef. Hilarious, no? Maybe this is a trick everyone else knows already but it was new to me, and it was new to Serena, so: the thing is, in the past, getting the pastry from bench/board to tin has been my downfall. Often have I wept, gnashed teeth, etc, over pastry breaking and splitting in my hands. And then a couple of weeks ago, I saw a kid on Junior MC doing the most simple, amazing thing: he rolled out the pastry on his benchtop, then rolled the pastry back around and over his rolling pin, carried it over and then let it unfurl gently into the waiting tart tin. BRILLIANT. We did this today and it was perfection!)

Line the pastry with foil and fill with pastry weights, dried beans or rice. Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove the foil and weights, prick the base with a fork, and bake for 8 minutes.

Lightly beat the last egg and brush the pastry case lightly. Return to the oven for 2 minutes to seal, then remove from over and if necessary trim edges.

Roll out the reserved pastry to 0.5cm thickness and use a pastry cutter or sharp knife to cut into 1cm strips. If your filling's not ready, cover with a tea towel. (Serena was in sole charge of this part and she was great - she used a serrated bread knife to cut out the strips, which gave them nice little edges.)

We did the filling while waiting around for the pastry to blind bake, but I guess you can do it whenever you like. To make the filling, combine the cherries, raspberries, lemon zest and juice, and icing sugar in a large mixing bowl. Toss together gently to avoid breaking up the fruit. Tip into a colander to drain away excess liquid - we did this a few times, as we had a lot of liquid from the frozen raspberries. Mix gently with the cornflour. Then pile the fruit into the prepared tart shell.

Lay the pastry strips across the top of the tart to form a lattice. Brush the pastry with reserved egg wash, then sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake for 20 minutes or until pastry is golden. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then carefully remove from the tin.

Serve with icecream (optional), while drinking coffee (essential) and watching Twin Peaks (not essential but a laudable life choice).

From The Good Life by Adrian Richardson, via the Kinokuniya Cookbook Catalogue October 2011.

Twin Peaks Cherry Pie

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Melbourne eats

Last weekend a group of us headed to Melbourne as a surprise for a recently-moved friend's birthday. SURPRISE! We were pretty proud of ourselves for all keeping our mouths shut for the two-month lead up to the day.

Not a surprise: we ate a lot. A lot. (Full credit goes to Michelle for doing the dining research.)


St Ali, South Melbourne
After getting up at the crack of dawn to catch an early flight, good coffee was essential. St Ali in South Melbourne fit the bill, though their muffins (including one bacon and chutney savoury number!) were sadly dry and disappointing.


Then it was off to St Katherine's in Kew for the birthday lunch. St K's is a casual dining restaurant with Greek, Turkish and Middle Eastern food, run by that little short guy from Masterchef. In contrast to the disappointing Press Club by the same group, St K's was fun, tasty and relatively cheap. The pides, fried chicken, rotisserie meats and salads were all good.

St Katherines, Kew
Lamb dumplings at St K's

St Katherines, Kew
Sangria jelly (compressed melon salad, passionfruit curd, fanta foam) at St K's

We were then only briefly slowed down by rain, shopping and chit chat before launching into dinner at Comme, a fairly traditional French joint in the cbd.

Comme, Melbourne
Pork belly at Comme

I'll spare you an account of the karaoke that followed.


The next day, again we started with coffee and breakfast, this time at Three Bags Full in Abbotsford.

Three Bags Full, Abbotsford
French toast with rhubarb, Three Bags Full

Three Bags Full, Abbotsford
Rice pudding with mango, strawberry and coconut, Three Bags Full


Still hungry? Lunch at Huxtable in Fitzroy followed.

Huxtable, Fitzroy
Rice flour crusted oyster po'boy, iceberg, sirracha mayo, Huxtable

Huxtable, Fitzroy
Yellowfin tuna and huon ocean trout, kim chi, sesame, avocado, Huxtable. The Korean BBQ pork ribs were also really good.


Last but not least, Chin Chin in Melbourne, where the music is too loud, the air con is too cold, the queues are too long (we showed up at 5 to make sure we got a table) and the food is... pretty good, actually.

Chin Chin, Melbourne
Crab salad, Chin Chin

Chin Chin, Melbourne
Palm sugar and honeycomb icecream with lime syrup, Chin Chin


And then we went (staggered) home. Good times, Melbourne, good times...

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Gratuitous photo post and Crave Sydney Food Festival

It's been a fairly quiet food festival for me this year, in contrast to last year's frenetic dining. I was hoping we'd have a repeat of 2010's awesome Single Origin breakfasts but it wasn't to be, and a lot of the best Sugar Hits seem to have dropped off the list as well. Still - there's been some memorable meals.

High Tea, Victoria Room
Highlight: high tea at the Victoria Room in Darlinghurst, with the usual assortment of dainty nibbles, warm scones, freshly brewed tea and sammiches with the crusts cut off. Schmancy. Also, a good excuse to pull out pretty dresses and shoes.

Magnus Nilsson dinner at Marque
Oddlight: Magnus Nilsson dinner at Marque. Nilsson, aged only 27, is making big news for his Swedish restaurant Faviken, so his dinners at Marque were well hyped. While there were certainly some good dishes (WA Marron with Oatmeal, Sprouting Barley, Fermented Vegetables and Almost Burnt Cream) and some challengingly tasty dishes (Crust of dried pigs blood and sea urchin; or the Dice of raw beef heart with marrow, spring flowers, toast and herb salt), there were also some truly wtf ones - like the Leeks, Cream Whisked with Beer, Vinegar and Dried Mullet Roe. The photo shows what I thought about that. Still, the company was excellent and was was the wine.

Azuma Kushiyaki
Best value: Azuma Kushiyaki, as always. For $38 at lunch time, you can get an entree with three items, plus this wagyu beef bento box, and a glass of wine or a beer. Taaaasty.

Night Noodle Markets
Least value: Night Noodle Markets. Again, not a surprise. Go for the company and the atmosphere. Or if you're a misanthrope like me, stick around for one entree, tasty betel leaves from Nu in this case, and then...

Spice I Am, Surry Hills
... escape to Spice I Am in Surry Hills for a meal that costs about the same, but tastier and with actual table service.

Halloween cookies at Sweet Infinity, Strand Arcade
One photo for the road - cute Halloween cookies at Sweet Infinity, Strand Arcade. BOO.