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.