Summer on it's way!

This week saw the arrival of the first Heirloom tomatoes. We recieved 10 different varieties all together. Its still early but the flavours are quite well developed and different already. I hope its going to be a good long season this year. Whaen the produce id this good I feel the least done to the product the better. I'll play with them a little in the way we cut and present them but at the end of the day the beauty is in the simplicity and realising that some times less really is more. Later!

Lightly Cured Tuna, Gazpacho Jelly, Smoked Eel 'Sand'.

This was a new version of an old dish again. Lets start with the tuna. We marinated the tuna in a salt, pepper and herb mix for approximately 1 hour. This allowed the tuna to take on just enough spice and all the perfume of the herbs. The cannelloni is wrapped in a Gazpacho Jelly that we set with Kappa. The filling is avocado, tomato confit and tuna tartare dressed with a little Chardonnay vinegar and fresh basil. The plate is dressed with Smoked Eel 'Sand'. We did this by making a smoked eel puree and then de-hydrating it. Once it was completely dry we added some tapioca malto dextrin and a little dried botarrga. We added a little yuzu and hazelnut dressing for a little acidity and some baby basil for texture and flavour. The Tuna is resting on a fine fennel 'slaw' again dressed with Chardonnay Vinegar and chopped chervil.

Organic Milk fed Veal, Green Barley Cous-Cous, Sweatbread, Baby Garlic and Puree of Caramelized Shallots

I've been Getting the most beautiful Veal from Northern N.S.W. just behind Coff's Harbour. It comes form Angus Bulls on Milk Cows and has the most fantastic flavour. The calf's are milk and grain fed and graze on the lush hills of an old volcano. The farm is completely Bio dynamic.The leanness of the loin appreciated cooking sous-vide in the Roner. I served it with some Green Pearl Barley which we cook with a Bay stock and finish with preserved lemon and white onion. It tastes really clean like a spring meadow and goes great with the veal. The plate is finished with some braised young garlic that we cook until they melt in your mouth. A lovely subtle sweet flavour. The dish is sauced at the table with a light Madeira Jus that is split with Argan Oil, the nuttiness makes sense of the whole dish. This is what would be called Rose Veal in Europe and it has a fantastic pale pink colour as you can see. A really fantastic product.

Parmesan Curds & Whey

So after a little thought I decided it might be nice to use the curd from the parmesan serum to stuff a possin. I got some beautiful free range, cornfed birds and proceeded to put the curd between the skin and the flesh of the birds. The first time I only used a thin layer as the flavour was so intense, however a lot of the power is lost in cooking so a good amount was used in the end.
Next we cooked the birds Sous-vide for around 30 mins at 65 degrees. Before icing it ready to colour in a pan. Id tasted the cooked bird last week so knew the flavour was that of lightly toasted parmesan. It struck me as a very light spring preparation and even though we're still officialy in winter here, I'm already getting the first broad beans form one of my suppliers. The marriage was made, then I had some beautiful glazed spring onions which just seemed the natural partner for the beans.
So once the bird was coloured in the pan I played about with a few presentations as you can see (this isn't all of them) and came upmwith some promising dishes for the new spring menu in a couple of weeks. Its so simple and the flavours all go really well. I warmed up the beans in a little of the whey and finished it with some really fruity EVO. All that was left was to dot a few drops of pousin jus around and enjoy the flavours.

'Spaghetti Bolognese' #2

So after the weekend neither of the preparations I had left in the kitchen really worked out. The Parmesan mix was just the same and didn't turn into noodles and the consomme was too dense and didn't clarify when defrosted. Well actually the sauce was too reduced and so at fridge temperature was still a solid gel. I ended up clarifying it the normal way and it was fine. For the noodles I decided, after talking with a friend (cheers Reuven) to use only the whey from the Parmesan and 1.5% Methyl-cellulose.
Success. Well Kind of. The noodles set and we're really intense Parmesan flavour. However the flavours were all wrong.The consomme was far to strong and masked the flavour of the noodles. As you can see the first Syringe I used was to thick and the noodles were more like tagliatelle, but a thinner hole sorted that out. So to the next task. I have a lighter tomato flavoured broth to clarify tomorrow and maybe 2% methyl for a firmer noodle. I'll let you know.

'Spaghetti Bolognaise' or not?

I've been thinking of ways to use metil-cellulose since I received it and thought it would be fun to re-do an old classic, Spaghetti Bolognese. I decided to make a bolognese consomme with Parmesan 'metil' noodles. After e few failed attempts at clarifying with gelatin due to incorrect % I decided to use this method for the consomme. After a night in the freezer the broth is slowly de-frosting as we speak in the fridge over the week end.

Next came the noodles. I wanted a really intense Parmesan flavour and so decide to make some Parmesan serum. I let the serum sit in the fridge overnight and when I came back the next day I was confronted by two very different products from the day before. The serum had split and I was left with a kind of 'curd' and 'whey'. Both had a very strong Parmesan flavour.

I separated them both and decided to use the whey for the noodles. I'm now left with a new product to play with after this. Parmesan Curd/Butter. Its super smooth and really intense. More fun next week, maybe replace butter content in pastries with it, or slip it under the skin of poultry who knows at this point.

So that's we're I'm at at the moment. I'll post the finished product when I get to work on Tuesday

Char-Grilled Rock Melon, Goats Cheese'Nougat', Baby Turnips & Carrots 'en Aigre-Douce'.

This is a returning and evolving vegetarian dish this winter. The original dish infact, wasn't vegetarian at all, and was servred with seared foie gras. However the lack of fresh foie down under led me to re-do the dish as a vegetarian option, with the fatty foie replaced with lovely fresh goats cheese. Last year we roasted the melon but I thought the smokiness of the grill would be good this year. To give it a another dimension I added a favourite preparation of mine 'Goats cheese Nougat'. The nuts change each time but today we are using pistachio, almond and hazelnut. The carrots and turnips are tossed in foaming butter before deglazing with Jerez vinegar and maple syrup. Toss in some grape cheeks and choppped chives and dress the plate. The combination of the slight bitter turnips and the sweet carrots come together well with the dressing. The dressing also bings out the smokiness and cuts the fatty nougat.

'Bacon & Eggs on Toast'

This was a dish I put together for a regular customer of mine. I had some 62 degree eggs that I'd been playing with. So I kind of did a version of 'Bacon & Eggs on Toast'. We warmed the peeled eggs up in the 'Roner' and then dressed them with a 'Buttered Toast Foam' and some 'Jamon Crumbs'. Just a little fun but the customers loved it.

Tartare of W.A. Scampi and Hiramasa Kingfish, Heirloom Tomatoes, Cherries and Macadamias

This dish started life as an entree in the summer (Kingfish Carpaccio, Scampi Tartare, Tomato and Macadamia, Grain Mustard Dressing) and when we were writing the new Dega menu we thought we'd trim it down a little to include it as the first course. We removed the carpaccio and instead diced up the bellies of the kingfish and mixed them with the Scampi. The beautiful marbleing in the belly made the whole preparation a lot richer with a great mouth feel. The cherries and tomato go fantasticaly together and cut nicely through the fatiness of the kingfish. The grain mustard complements all the elements well. Finish with some winter purslane and red garnet and some microplaned macadamias and its a great dish of textures and flavours.

The arrival of 'Versawhip'

So my first trials with Versawhip 600. I'd read of people having issues with achieving the texture but I found it pretty straight forward. The textue is pretty special and has a really specific mouth feel before it almost evapourates in your mouth. I tried a simple caramel recipe (WD50) and it reminded me of a sweet we used to get back in England called 'cinder toffee'. I leaft the mix in the fridge over night and the nextday only a small amount of volume had gone. However when i put it back on the 'Kitchen-Aid' it whipped straight back up. The pictures are from the next day. Looking forward to playing with this over the next couple of weeks. Until then!

Just recieved our 2 nd batch of West Australian truffles and I have to say there pretty good. The fact that there harvested less then 48 hours ago makes a big difference. They've got a lot stronger perfume than last year and at $500 less per kg this year you've got to be happy. Lets hope they continue to get better and better. For me its as good if not bettter than some imported ones (no quarantine e.t.c.)

Blue-Eye Trevella, Fennel, Lemon, Almond, Sherry

Just read a great book about matching food with sherry (The Perfect Marriage, foreword by Heston Blumenthal) and so came about this dish. We cooked the fish sous-vide with a little olive oil (52.5 degrees). The texture was fantastic. Next we made a beautiful clean fennel jelly with agar and also confit some pencil fennel. then we cooked some vongole clams with a little manzanilla and finally dressed the plate with some lemon pith puree (courtesy of the boys in Roses), a superfine roast almond puree (paco jet) and an oloroso reduction to bring it all together. Maybe I'll add some crisp skin from the fish for a contrast in texture?

Smoked Breast of Pork, Baby Squid & Shellfish Vinaigrette,Pink Grapefruit and Pistachio Glaze

This has been one of our most popular entree's through Autumn. Lets be honest though any pork and seafood combination goes down well in Sydney. The glaze cuts nicely through the sweet, fatty pork annd livens up all the seafood. Real comfort food.

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John Dory, truffled artichoke barigoule, Jamon scented carrot, W. A. Truffles, Jamon "crunch"

Trying some things with transglutaminase this week. will post pics in a few days!