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.



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.

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.)



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.


Lamb dumplings at St K's


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.


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.


French toast with rhubarb, Three Bags Full


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


Still hungry? Lunch at Huxtable in Fitzroy followed.


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


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.


Crab salad, Chin Chin


Palm sugar and honeycomb icecream with lime syrup, Chin Chin


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

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.


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.


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.


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.


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...


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


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

Coconut chicken ricepaper rolls

Oh hi! Have some photos:


Pomegranate glazed duck with hazelnuts, prosciutto, radicchio and prunes. Orto Trading Co, Surry Hills.


Pork knuckle at my perennial favourite, the German Club in Tempe.


A gluttonous feast at Blue Plate, Neutral Bay. (Not pictured: entrees.)


Apropos of nothing, a Viet-inspired recipe:

Coconut chicken ricepaper rolls

300g chicken
125 ml coconut cream
125 ml chicken stock
10cm coarsely chopped fresh lemon grass
5cm finely chopped or grated fresh ginger
1 tbsp chopped coriander root and stem
100 g beans or snow peas, trimmed and sliced thinly
carrot, sliced thinly
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh coriander
12 or more rice paper sheets
lime or lemon

Sauce
Hoisin sauce
chilli sauce
fish sauce
Combine above to taste.

Combine the chicken, coconut cream, stock, lemongrass, ginger and coriander root and stem in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes or until chicken is cooked. Cool chicken in the pan for 10 minutes. Then remove chicken from pan, reserve 1/4 liquid and discard the rest.

Chop chicken finely and combine with beans/peas, carrot, coriander. poaching liquid and a squeeze of lime or lemon.

Assemble the rolls - soak each in warm water until softened then place on a chopping board covered with a tea towel. Place a line of filling along the middle, with sauce if you like, then roll it like a burrito.

No pictures I'm afraid, as I'm lazy.

Adapted from Women's Weekly: New Classics

Chairman Mao's Red Braised Pork

First, some recent fooding:


Sashimi at Izakaya Fujiyama, Surry Hills. The real highlight though was the much less photogenic braised pork belly with eggplant - soooo gooood. The chocolate cake with condensed milk icecream and quince was also a winner.


Cherry trifle at The Carrington, Surry Hills, which has re-furbed itself as a hipster Spanish tapas joint. The cocktails are awesome - I liked the Spanish Pimp and the Single Mother, and doesn't that sound like a movie title? - and there's a lot of fun food to try like empanadas, medianoche (Cuban midnight sandwich), chicken wings, calamari sliders, jamon croquettes and churros with chocolate.


Secondly, another recipe from Fuschia Dunlop. Apparently this was one of Mao Zedong's favourite dishes. For my own part, I found this dish lacking a certain something - I think the pork needed longer cooking time to get it really soft - but the flavour is quite delicious.



Chairman Mao's Red Braised Pork

500g pork belly (skin optional)
2 tbsp groundnut oil
2 tbsp white sugar
1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
20g fresh ginger, skin left on and sliced
1 star anise
2 dried red chillies (I subbed in some dried chilli flakes)
A small piece of cassia bark or cinnamon stick
Light soy sauce, salt and sugar
A few lengths spring onion greens

Plunge the pork belly into a pan of boiling water and simmer for 3-4 minutes until partially cooked. Remove and when cool enough to handle, cut into bite sized pieces.

Heat the sugar and oil in a wok or pan over a gentle flame until the sugar melts, then raise the heat and sit until the sugar turns a rich caramel brown. Add the pork and the wine.

Add enough water to just cover the pork, and add the ginger, star anise, chillies and cassia/cinnamon. Bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer - the book suggests simmering for 40-50 minutes but I had to take it longer and on next attempt will probably try for twice as long.

Towards the end of the cooking time, turn up the heat to reduce the sauce and season with soy, salt and sugar to taste. Add the spring onion greens just before serving.

Adapted from "Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: recipes from Hunan province" by Fuschia Dunlop