Lamb Salad; Liquorice Cured Saddle, Pickled Tongue, Globe Artichokes, Mozzarella and Apricot

When I'm looking for ideas for a new menu I find they come from all sorts of areas. I've noticed recently on certain menus around town that the good old duck ham is making a comeback. I can remember the first time I came across this technique and being thoroughly impressed at the effect salt can have on a piece of meat. I guess this was the beginning of a fondness for curing and all other fantastic things you can achieve by just adding salt to things. So I began to think of other meats I could cure. Spring is in the air and the first thing that came to mind was lamb. I ordered in a few saddles and set about salting them. 24hours later and they were hanging in muslin in the cool room. As I waited I started to think about what to match with my saddles. I was doing a bit of research on the Internet and came back across the Food Pairing site. I was browsing through the different food items and came across the pairing tree for mozzarella. I flicked over it and then the dish started to unfold before me. I'd been playing with mozzarella Spheres for a while and had eventually come up with a solid recipe for reverse spherification. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with them but putting them with the cured lamb saddles made good sense now. The next flavour that caught my attention was liquorice. It's always been a combination I'd wanted to try for myself after reading about a dish the Roca Brothers we're doing at El Cellar de Can Roca, but hadn't really got to it. I had some liquorice powder in the store ( Bras style; almond, dried olive, brown sugar and anise) So I un-wrapped the saddles and rolled them in the liquorice powder before wrapping them again. 2 days later they were ready.
I added some beautiful tongues which had been cooked sous-vide for 27.5 hours at 70 degrees C in a fragrant pickling liquor. To add a crunch to the dish some beautiful baby globes we're added. I dresses the plate with some spots of dried apricot puree and a little lamb jus/jerez vinaigrette. A few leaves of celery cress finish the dish. The liquid mozzarella brings all the elements together. I find it a nice light meat entree for the spring season.

Beetroot 'Fregola', Basil Infused Snails, Baby Squid, Glazed Radishes and Beets

As anyone who's been following this blog will know, I love beetroot. Whether it be in a sweet or a savoury medium. This week was the turn of the savoury side and a new dish for the spring menu. I wanted to use fresh snails on the menu again and was looking for a garnish that would make the dish a little more accessible to our customers. After all theres no point having beautiful local products if the diners aren't going to taste them. So I set about thinking of the dish. At first I thought we would serve the snails with a potato risotto, (a technique I first saw ten years ago while I was working at Aureole in New York. For one of the lunch specials we would serve sauteed halibut cheeks with potato risotto and red wind sauce. There was no rice in the risotto, this was replaced with a brunoise of a waxy potato cooked in the same manner).I was going to add jamon into the dish to add a bit of richness. We tried a few takes on the dish but it wasn't what I was looking for...back to the drawing board. Then, as sometimes happened I stumbled across a bag of fregola that I had left from another dish. The pasta is made from 100% durum wheat and has a fantastic nuttiness to it. So the dish was kind of on the same lines but instead of potato replacing the rice I now had this fantastic pasta. Now I began to think of the flavours I wanted to add to the pasta.
A few days earlier I had been reading an article on flavour compounds and at the end of the article there was a short list of unusual ingredients that went together because they shared some of the same flavour compounds. One of these matches was snails and beetroot. So that was the start snails and beetroot and an added bonus was the fact that here in Australia they luv beetroot. So I began to expand the idea happy that the fact there was beetroot on the plate would mean that people would maybe get to try fresh snails.

It was immediately clear that to get the most beetroot flavour into the dish I would cook the pasta in beetroot juice. After a few trials we decided that a mix of 50% juice and 50% vegetable stock would be better as 100% juice turned out a little too earthy once the pasta was cooked. Once this was locked in we began on the rest of the garnish. Its beetroot season here and we've been getting beautiful baby beets, golden and red, and they we're and instant addition. Once they we're cooked and peeled we glazed them in a little butter and aged white and normal balsamic. I find the earthiness of beets means you need something sharp to cut through it and the sweet vinegar did just that. To accompany the beets we added some tiny red radishes which we glazed in a little verjus.
So that was the garnish, now lets get back to the star of the dish the fresh snail. I buy my snails from a company called Snails Bon Apetite. Its owned by Rob and Helen Dyball and is based in the beautiful Hunter Valley Wine region here in New South Wales. Its so good to have such a great product on our doorstep. Helen does a great job of purgeing the snails for us and couriers them down to us the next day. I think snails go well with most herbs, especially parsley, but I chose to coat them in a fragrant basil puree once we sauteed them nice and crisp. I like squid with snails I think its a nice contrast in texture and they complement each other well in this dish of bold flavours. As I said before to really get the most out of beetroot you need some type of acid, bef0re we used vinegar, which is quite usual, However for the fregola element I used a different type of acid for this job, Passion fruit. A few dots of passion puree dotted around the dish do the job of the vinegar but with a great new flavour. I think this idea must have come from a squid dish I used to do with a passion fruit dressing a few years ago. So that was the dish all that was needed was a few discs of raw radish and some fantastic Hearts ease flowers form my balcony garden. Enjoy!

Spanner Crab Salad, King Crab Fingers, Avocado Tile, Piquillos Wafer

...and so finally spring is upon us. The evenings begin to grow lighter and so to, after the cold months of winter, does the food. I always look forward to spring, the promise of warm weather and the day when I lock away my shoes and bring out the thongs draws nearer. We've started with the spring changes on the entre menu and this is the first dish to arrive. It started when I read a post over at "IDEAS IN FOOD . After reading it I set about coming up with the dish. The flavours are nothing new (crab,avocado, tomato) but I wanted to create some new textures while retaining the integrity of the ingredients. I started with the crab. I'd heard about this great fresh spanner crab meat that's been coming down from Queensland. The company is called Ceas and the spanner crabs the produce was the first to become a sustainable catch in Australia.http://www.ceascrabpak.com/page/about_us.html. I got a few samples in from my supplier and the product was very good with great flavour. To bind the meat I decided an a yuzu/mandarin mayonnaise to balance out the richness of the crab meat. Next I thought we'd have a bit of fun with the 'crab fingers'. Really the idea came from a childhood favourite of mine, fish fingers but instead of regular breadcrumbs I used squid ink bread crumbs. The contrast in colour looks great.
Next the avocado was chopped and seasoned with some Espellete pepper and again yuzu juice to connect it with the crab salad. A quick freeze and I had a workable sheet to cut to the shape I wanted. Eventually I decided on a strip after trying a few different shapes. We had some beautiful piquillos peppers that i made into a puree and dehydrated to get the wafers.
The plate is dressed with a beautiful gel made from tomato syrup and another gel made from coriander. The fingers are pan fried and served warm and the salad cold for a contrast in temperatures as well as textures. We finished the dish with some micro coriander. The dish looks very bright and cheerful and the colours just shine out spring, spring, spring.

Say "Cheese!"

This is a shot of our cheese trolley before it went out to the floor. I'm very lucky to be at a restaurant were cheese is an important part of the dinning experience. As you can see we usually run with 15 to 20 varieties. These will be a mix of both Australian and European cheeses. I particularly like the Australian goats cheese's but we have some fantastic imports. I buy a lot of my cheese from http://www.smellycheese.com.au. Mel looks after me there and she's always got lots of special lesser known cheeses to brighten up the board and filthy joke to make me laugh. Cheese is very expensive in Australia, especially the imported stuff, so I feel very lucky to be able to offer such a fine range. It's great watching the trolley go out full and then coming back with not much left, that means we might actually make some money on it. I just hope there's a little bit of runny Brillat Savarin for me to dip my warm bread in. Mmm..

1st & 3rd Courses of the Truffle Menu '08

Sorry I haven't managed to get the whole menu in 1 post but we seem to sell the menu in the middle of the busiest part of the service and I don't always have time to get the camera. However I'll try for the main and dessert this week. With the menu we've kept it very simple so that it's all about the truffle. The dishes are merely vehicles for these fabulous fungi. The first coarse is a truffle'd leek and potato veloute. We serve it with a little truffle'd pissaladiere on the side. The third coarse as you can see is an adaptation of the current scallop dish and again the simple flavours of a classic barigoule marry classically with the truffles. Three down, two to go.

Rib of Milk Fed Veal, Artickokes: Stuffed Globes and Smoked Jerusalem, Caper & Raisin Puree.

With the new Veal dish we've decided to bring back a bit of the old fashioned theatre to the dinning room. We cook the ribs sous-vide and colour them to order. The waiter then carves the rib from the bone table side and plates it for the guest. I think its important to keep some of the traditional techniques alive as they can so easily be forgotten in today's modern society.
The picture above is of the garnish which we plate in the kitchen. We smoke the Jerusalem artichokes, over vines and wine casks, after they are cooked and then puree them. The caper and raisin puree is a favourite of mine and the sweet, salty, sour flavours are necessary to cut through the richness of the meat and the puree. The stuffing for the globes is made from sweat breads, bone marrow, almonds, lemon zest, shallot and a little garlic and is well balanced against the sharp artichokes. The sauce is brought to life with a little jerez vinegar and brings everything together nicely.

Squid Ink bread....Cont.

Here's the first two dishes to come form my squid ink bread. I made a second batch with more butter, less ink and a little less water. The crumb was a little denser but still nice and light. We froze the loaf overnight and sliced it nice and thin. First we made crisp fingers and dressed them with a tartar of Hervey Bay scallops, sea urchin roe, yuzu/hazelnut emulsion and crisp garlic and baby onion rings. Quite delicious
Next we dried the bread around a canoli mould. when the tubes were nice and crisp we filled it with smoked bacon mousse and topped it with salmon caviar and a few micro herbs. I think this is the version were going to adapt. More to follow....

Coffin Bay Oysters, Shaved Foie Gras, Walnut Emulsion, Sorrel

This is the first coarse on our Gourmand Menu at the moment and has become one of the signature dishes at the restaurant. The oysters are shucked to order and then marinated in a hazelnut/walnut oil and sherry vinegar marinade. We then dress them with a walnut emulsion. The finishing touches are shaved foie gras, a sprinkling of toasted hazelnuts and some beautiful fragrant sorrel leaves. The dish sometimes comes with winter purslane when available.

Squid ink Bread

I decided this week to have some fun with squid ink. I've been wanting to make a squid ink bread for a while and today this was the first attempt. I was quite pleased with the results though tomorrow I will adjust the quantities a little. I based the recipe on a simple pain de mie recipe with the addition of the ink. I took out some of the butter; however on tasting the bread I feel that reducing the water to accommodate the added moisture from the ink would be better. The loaf had a fantastic crust and the crumb was quite light and moist.
I didn't have the proper mould to cook a pain de mie so I cooked the loaf first in a terrine mould and then finished it out of the mould.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the bread yet. I've thought of canapes with sea urchin, king crab sandwiches or maybe crisp croutons with 62 degree egg and chorizo puree. Not sure yet.
So this was a good start to a week of fun with squid ink. I'll let you know how I get on tomorrow.

62 degree Duck Egg, Glazed Girolles and Mousseron, Jamon and Parmesan.

This is one of my favourite dishes at the moment and is simply a plate filled with beautiful ingredients. The centre of the dish is the fantastic duck egg with its silky yolk that bursts and covers everything else in the bowl with a wave if richness and indulgence. We surround that with some tiny girolle and mousseron which we de-glaze with a little sherry vinegar and then glaze in a little veal jus. For good measure, and to add a little crunch, we toss in some delicate asparagus spears at the last moment. Then we twist in some wafer thin Iberian Jamon and some crunchy onion rings and Parmesan crisps. This would be great for breakfast, lunch or dinner and it makes a great second coarse on our truffle menu (add eggs stored with the truffles and lashings of freshly sliced W.A. truffles). Decadent, Rich and very very tasty.

Seared 'Hervey Bay' Scallops, Crunchy Globe Artichokes, Truffle infused White Asparagus, Smoked Speck Crumbs and Liquid Gel

As I mentioned last week the Australian truffle season has just begun. We received our first shipment of 'Manjimup' truffles from Western OZ on Tuesday and set to work to finding new dishes for them. We've decided to offer a 5 coarse truffle menu this season as well as using the truffles in our regular dishes. This is the second coarse in the truffle menu but also available on the a la carte menu (significantly less truffles). The globe artichoke season has just started as well so we've paired them together here. I love globes but I find that all to often they just tend to taste like lemon juice or what ever other anti-oxidation method has been used in their preparation. This season we've decided to cook the artichokes sous-vide with a little ascorbic acid and water. Its working really well and because of the sous-vide cutting out oxidation we need only use the minimal ascorbic acid. This allows the true flavour of the artichoke to come through. I've opted also for a different method for finishing the artichokes for service. Usually I would pan fry the cooked globes but this year i have decided to dust them with potato starch and deep fry them. Using this technique gives the interesting final result of crunchy globes but with little or no colour. The asparagus is cooked sous-vide too. We add just a touch of truffle oil and beautiful french butter to the bag before we seal them tight and then cook them at 83 degree C for about 1 hour. I find white asparagus benefits from long slow cooking as opposed to blanching them quickly. The result is a firm spear that just melts in your mouth. To add a little textural contrast when the customer eats them we coat the bottom of the spears in smoked speck crumbs. With the skin and trimmings from the speck we make a beautiful rich stock. Once its passed and seasoned we thicken it with a little xanthan and finish it with chopped chives. The scallops from Hervey Bay are so sweet at the moment and they bring the rest of the earthy elements together. The discs of fresh truffle pick up the flavour in the asparagus and everything comes together nicely. This is a nice light dish but with some big flavours all balanced well. I'll post the whole truffle menu later in the week. Later

Best of Both Worlds

During the last week we've had some great produce come into the kitchen. As I've mentioned in me previous posts we've just started to get some beautiful wild french mushrooms. This is a picture of our second delivery of Girolles and Mousseron. We get girolles most years from France but the mousseron don't always travel well. Its early in the season but so far this year there both great. We also received some beautiful wild asparagus.
Next we started to get the first of the game birds. This is one of the pheasants we're now getting from our supplier. Although here in Australia most of the game birds are farmed the quality is fantastic. These birds come from the 'Glenloth' farm and are all free range. The birds are out of the pens all day and are only locked up at night to protect them from predators. You forget how beautiful these birds are until you see them with all their feathers.
This is a picture of the pheasants legs just as they come out of the oven. This is the preparation for the ragout in the previous post. With modern transport we are lucky to have the opportunity to combine the best of the European summer with the best of our Australian winter. I'm also really excited about this week as on Thursday we will receive the first of this years Australian Truffles. I'll post more info when they arrive.

Angus Tenderloin, Potato & Gruyere Terrine, Glazed Girolle's, French Onion Consomme.

This is the new beef dish on the winter menu. Due to customer demand we always have to have a beef dish on the menu. This can be a good and a bad thing. On the down side it can mean that we can't always have as much choice in the meat section as I would like but on the good side it can really stretch your imagination to constantly come up with new and interesting dishes. The inspiration for this dish was the classic French Onion Soup. I love the soup and can think of nothing better on a cold winters day than a huge bowl of it topped off with a Gruyere gratinated crouton. So that was the starting point. The marriage of onions and beef is nothing new but I wanted to introduce as many different members of the onion family as I could. This is something I like to do a lot, explore different cooking techniques and presentation of one ingredient in a single dish. As I said the soup was the starter for this so once we'd decided to make a consomme out of it, the rest of the garnish fell into place. We replaced the crouton with the terrine which turned out great and when we warmed it up the layers of cheese turned a beautiful golden brown. The flavour of the browned cheese was just the thing to bring back memories of the soup. So the rest of the onion elements are glazed spring onions, pearl onion rings, chive tips and onion sprouts. To this I added another classic flavour match, mushrooms. We had some beautiful Girolle's arrive this week imported from France and they went straight into this garnish. In the restaurant we deliver the garnish to the table first. The waiter then silver serves the tenderloin on to the plate....
.....and sauces the dish with the consomme. The completed dish eats really well with all the flavours coming together in the consomme.
With the weather on the turn here now, dishes like this are very comforting for the dinners. So far our faithful beef eaters are really enjoying the dish andf at the end of the day thats all that really matters.

Opera Cake '2008'

A few months ago now we picked up a function for the Sydney Operatic Society. It was to be an outside event for approximately 250 pax, 3 courses and the dessert had to be a modern version of the classic opera cake. We looked at different recipes for the classic and came up with a few different versions. We decided on this one and the dish is now on the menu in the restaurant. For those of you who may not be familiar with the Opera cake it is a multi layered cake with only 3 flavours; Coffee, Almond and Chocolate and quite often would have 'Opera' written on the glaze in gold. So that was the brief. On our version we have a chocolate gel (set with pectin), a coffee and vanilla cream (set brulee mix), almond soil, chocolate soil, roast almond ice-cream ('Paco-Jet') and chocolate caramel to finish of the dish.
We kept all the flavours and kind of warped the different layers. The same 3 flavours all with a different texture. Later

Sous-Vide Pheasant,Chestnut Gnocchi,Mousseron and Wild Asparagus, Piquant Ragout, Smoky Cream.

As we head into winter and the days get shorter I like to use game birds on the menu. I get great 'Game Farm' birds from my butcher. They come in at about 1.2kg whole so we need to use the leg and breast to make up a good portion. We cook the crowns sous-vide and then crisp up the skins. I have a great basque recipe for the legs. We marinate them overnight with some sugar, cider vinegar and white wine. The next day we cook them in the marinade and add green olives, prunes and capers. The resulting braise is very aromatic and very piquant with the prunes and cider vinegar. I love chestnut flour and the smokiness goes very well with this bird. I have just received the first imported wild mushrooms and asparagus from France and they seemed to round of the dish nicely. I added some glazed cockscombs for a different texture and dressed everything with a little of the braising liquor. All flavours of winter and all very comforting for the time of year. The Smoky cream was made by infusing smoked speeck trimmings. We shoot this into a crisp tube of bric pastry for a nice crunch.

Beetroot and Chocolate Coulant, Blood Orange and Walnut, Candied Baby Fennel and Beetroot; The Evolution of a Dish

The following dish started as an idea about a year ago. I had this idea of making a savoury fondant in the style of Michel Bra's Chocolate coulant. The flavour I wanted to use was Beetroot. As I thought about it more the natural thing to use for the liquid centre seemed to be goats cheese. I tried a few different types and finally decided on a lovely fresh goats cheese from the Caparis farm in central New South Wales. I added a little cream and finally came up with a lovely runny centre when hot. At the time we were making a beautiful beetroot puree for another dish. I took some of this puree and reduced it a little more to thicken it up. I used this puree to replace the chocolate from Bras original recipe and reduced the sugar slightly. The result was a really nice biscuit for the fondant. I did a few trials but the dish never made it on to the menu and went back to the drawing board. The idea didn't return to me until recently when I started to play with beetroot as a dessert item. (see my post for Beetroot, Walnut, Blood Orange a dessert?) After a while the idea of mixing the beetroot biscuit with a chocolate liquid centre seemed like a good idea and mixing it with the blood orange element and the walnuts, from the previous dessert all seemed to make good sense. So the flavours we're all there all I needed was a dish to bring them all together. I thought I would add an element of caramel to the dish and decided to make a caramel gel which had caramelized walnuts scattered through it. on top of this I started to assemble the other elements of the dish. I took another element from the other desert in the shape of the candied baby fennel, and baby beetroots. I dressed the sweet salad with some fresh walnuts and a little walnut oil. I then added a some leaves of Bulls Blood micro cress.

I was really happy with the look of the dish but when we ate it the caramel gel just didn't fit in with the other flavours, especially the beautiful blood orange sorbet. So I scrapped that idea and cut the dish back to the key flavours I started with. Everything ate so well together that the only thing to decide on now was the presentation.

We tried a few different plates as you can see but decided on a flat rectangle. Every element separate but brought together as soon as the customer breaks the biscuit and the liquid ganache comes flooding out.

For me this is one of the highlights of being a chef. You start with an idea, or two, or even three and through trial and error you fashion it into the final dish. Sometimes you come up with nothing , or it seems that way at the time, but sometimes you end with something your really happy with. A year from conception right up to the finished dish today. The dish is now very balanced. I used a 66% chocolate and this goes very well with the beetroot which is earthy but very luxurious at the same time. the candied vegetable salad with the walnuts adds a different nuance with each bite and the sorbet balances all the rich oils and fats. Today I'm happy with this dish but who knows how it will look this time next year.

'Rhubarb and Custard'

I made this beautiful rhubarb sorbet the other day. I cooked the rhubarb out in a fair amount of butter and a little water. When I pacotized the puree the next day it had the smoothest texture. I could have eaten the whole tub. Being English the first thing I think of when I see rhubarb is crumble. I loved it as a child and can still remember waiting for it to come out after dinner in the winter with loads of hot custard. So that was the inspiration for this little dish. I paired the sorbet with some vanilla cream, a little pistachio soil and a lovely ginger and vanilla jelly. Happy days.

Spanish Makerel, Chorizo, Romesco Puree, cassoulet of Baby Squid, Banyuls Reduction

To say this dish was inspired by the fishes name would be a fair comment. Its very Spanish in all areas. The Mackerel is a fantastic fish when we can get it and it is best served on the rare side of medium rare, like tuna. It also makes great sashimi or carpaccio. If it is over cooked it becomes dry and has the texture of canned fish. For this dish I've wrapped the mackerel in wafer thin sheets of chorizo. This adds a nice spice to the meaty flesh and also gives the fish a little protection form the pan. I love romresco sauce and this smooth puree goes well with the spices of the chorizo. The cassoulet, although not entirely Spanish, finish of the dish well and fit's right into the story. I sometimes feel that the rich butterieness of the beans needs a little sharpness to lift them to that next level. I could have added a little vinegar to the beans at the last minute but instead I have made a warm jelly with the broth from the beans and sharpened it up with the addition of Banylus vinegar reduction. It works really well and add's another texture to the cassoulet. The baby squid is served in two different preparations, the rings are marinated in a little vinaigrette and the tentacles are deep fried to a nice crunchy finish. The plate is finished with a few drops of the beautiful Banyuls reduction. A nice dish for autumn.

Confit of Hiramasa Kingfish, Brussel Sprout Leaves, Foie Gras and Rhubarb, Smokey Red Wine Sauce

With the arrival of the colder weather comes the humble brussel sprout. For me brussle sprouts meant one thing only, Christmas dinner. When I was young this was the only time I would eat them because I really didn't like them. However as I grew up I began to eat them more often until eventually I would look forward to there arrival. Here they are the garnish for one of the great fish of Australia, Hiramasa kingfish. I really like kingfish, its fantastic raw and can take meaty garnishes when cooked. Here I've confit the fish. I find sometimes that if you cook kingfish to aggressively the fish flavour becomes to strong, however with the confit the gentle cooking lets the fish retain its clean flavour. We saute the sprout leaves in a little butter and finish them with some ginger and lemon zest. The rhubarb is sugar/salt cured and the sharp flavour livens up the whole garnish. I wanted to add some crunch to the whole dish so we rolled the Foie gras in crushed macadamia nuts before the beignet batter. They are very easy to eat and very moreish with ther warm liquid centres, a bit like a ferrero rocher. The other good thing about the kingfish is that the bones make the most fantastic sauce. We added a little speck trimming to the reduction and a few drops of super smooth macadamia nut pure on the plate. The dish eats really well together with the rhubarb cutting nicely through all the rich fatty components. From turkey to kingfish, its funny how things change.

Beetroot, Fennel, Blood Orange, Walnut- A dessert???

This is something I've been playing with for the last few weeks as a dessert. Its still not the final dish but I'm pretty happy with this version. The fine line between sweet and savoury really interests me and this was the inspiration for this dish. All the components I have used in a salad previously, a savoury salad. If you add some goats cheese the flavour combination is pretty classic. I didn't, but how about a nice goats cheese sorbet??? The base is a beetroot sponge,(and this is the element I'm not happy with, I'm thinking more beetroot financier), I've dressed this with two citrus 'sponges', one blood orange and the other mandarin. These add a freshness to the rich and buttery cake and ice cream. You've also got fresh blood orange segments. Next the walnuts which we have in 3 different textures; ice-cream, emulsion and fresh from the shell. The ice-cream is finished with buttermilk and is so rich, the emulsion with its oil and a little caramelized red wine vinegar is rich and sharp at the same time and the wet walnuts are just in there fine natural state, soft and buttery. The fennel is candied, a process that takes a week to accomplish, but well worth the wait. The process really intensifies the flavour without loosing the fresh, clean taste of the vegetable. The edible flowers help with the Strong bouquet of the other ingredients; Heartsease, Native Violets and Nasturtiums, sweet ,peppery and floral all help with the savoury element. I really like the dish so far but am looking forward to the next version. It looks great but if you get 10 on order your right in the shit. Ah well you can't have everything. Later

W.A. Marron, 'Kipfler' textures, Pearls of Caramelized Vinegar

This dish is the sum of 3 quality ingredients, W.A. Marrons, cocktail Kipfler potatoes and 'Cintra Estate' caramelized vinegar. The marrons are poele'd in foaming butter and left to rest while we put the rest of the dish together. The kipflers were getting at the moment have been so sweet and buttery and reminded me a little of the fantastic Jersey Royals that I used to get back in England. There so versatile and so I thought that I would shoe them off in a few different ways; boiled with lemon thyme and lemon zest, brushed with a little butter and crisped up as chips and made into a silky buttery mousse. Each preparation bring out a different quality of these fine potatoes.
The pearls or sago are blanched first and then left to marinate in the vinegar overnight. The next day your left with shiny pearls that hold a wonderful sharp and sweet taste. The caramelized vinegar is one of my favourite ingredients at the moment. The flavour is slightly sweet with a rich red wine taste. It makes great dressings and is great for livening up sauces . The Sauce is a reduced marron fume finished with some beurre noisette and a splash of cider vinegar and some chopped chives. The brown butter flavours in the sauce go well with the buttery kipflers and the pearls add a refreshing sharpness as you bite into them. We finish the whole thing with some slices of raw spring onion again as a balance to the richness of the other ingredients.

We've also had the dish with a warm mayo instead of the kipler foam however the textural thing worked best. As for the sago, well they take on what ever you marinate them in. I'm looking forward to makingYuzu pearls to go with some scallops and kos hearts. Later

Carrot & Saffron, Mango, White Chocolate, Liquorice

This is just something I was playing with and is completely different to the finished dish. Carrot and saffron puree, mango sponge, white chocolate sorbet, liquorice powder. Looked great and was full of flavour however not quite right. Back to the drawing board for this one but it has started another desert. I'll post it later this week along with my de-constructed opera cake. Later

'Coffee and Doughnuts'

This is the current dessert on the dega menu, and a little bit of fun. Its really simple but tastes great. Espresso creme brulee, infused with vanilla and cinnamon and Cardamom sabayon. The doughnut ice cream is made with Krispy Kreme originals in the paco jet. So smooth and very moreish, very moreish. Played with a few other things like croissant and danish. Krispy Kreme wins every time. Looks like the guys at 'Ideas in Food'http://http://ideasinfood.typepad.com/ideas_in_food/2008/03/putting-on-the.html are on the same vibe at the moment. The combinations are infinitive. We've put the ice cream on some pistachio soil to stop it sliding around and to fit in with the Moroccan flavours. Later

Saffron Rice Puffs

This is an idea I had after watching a series of videos, on http://gastrovideo.com/ , of the new techniques used at el Bulli for 2008. They make Parmesan souffles using rice puree as a base. We adapted it a little and cooked the rice with some saffron. After we mix it with some salt, Parmesan and egg whites. After mixing it well we spread it between a frame and let it set in the freezer. Once its set you can cut what ever shape you want and cook it on the silpat at 160 degrees C. This was the second attempt and a lot more successful. I found that the rice puree was too wet the first time and this meant that the souffle skin was to thin to hold the air. You just have to make sure that the rice is completely dry when you puree it. We sprinkled them with a little smoked paprika and served them as canapes. With rice being so absorbent the choices for flavours is innumerable. I'll let you know what else I come up with. The puffs ar really crisp and light and have a great saffron taste. Later

"Spaghetti" of W.A. Marron, Salad of it's Claws, Bolognese Tile, Truffle Puree

This is a new dish we've been playing with this week. Actually it started the week quite differently and I also began to play with Transglutaminase. I've used it briefly before have got a new supply from a great new company I've come across here in Sydney. The company is called creative-juice.com.au and there making it all the more easy to get Hydrocoloids e.t.c in Australia. Paul O'loughlin is more than happy to source and supply almost anything you might need. Good Job mate. Any way the technique is from WD-50, as I'm sure you will know, where the raw meat of the Marron is mixed with the Transglutaminase and then rolled out, rested and then poached. After you cool it you can pretty much treat the preparation as you would pasta. Hence the 'Spaghetti'. The bolognese is a tomato base with fennel, carrot and shallot which we bind with marron fume. The plate is dressed with some truffle puree which we cooked down in a little Madeira, brandy and brown chicken stock. The components are very rich and decadent so we balanced this with a very fresh, crunchy and aromatic salad; a little raw fennel, preserved lemon, fennel fronds and tiny hearts of baby kos. The dish will more than likely end up on the Dega menu and we haven't really decided whether to serve it hot or cold. It tastes great both ways. Win Win.

Steamed Ruby Snapper, Lemony Baby Squid and Vongole, Snow Crab and Harissa.

Hello everyone, sorry its been so long. The festive period never leaves much time for anything other than pushing on. However things have settled down now and I look forward to a good year. The end of last year has to have been the most demanding time I gone through in the 15 years or so I've been cooking. I'll save the story for another time. Back to the important stuff, food, food and more food. This is a dish we've been running for a few months now and I guess is coming to the end of it's time. For me its a great summer dish that is both light and fresh but full of flavours that bounce off each other. The snapper has been really good this year over Christmas and January. We simply just wrap it in glad wrap with some lemon oil and cook it at about 85 degrees in the steam oven. The garnish is made up of crisp sauteed hearts of baby Kos that we dress with Meyer lemon and confit garlic. We then use the citrus steam to gently heat the crab meat. The clams are cooked then the liquor is finished with a little cream and reduced to glaze the meat. We simply sear the baby squid. We make a fume with the bodies of the crab which results in a beautifully sweet and fragrant sauce which we finish with the roes. After that we finish the plates with a few dots of slightly spicy Harissa. Its good to be back and Ive got lots to post over the next few days. Later